Don't worry about that Buffalo... He is just a big cow!
Posted on 12/06/2018 11:35:03 AM PST by Simon Green
About 500 people are killed in hippopotamus attacks each year. On Saturday, Kristen Yaldor was almost one of them.
The 37-year-old American woman was on a river safari tour with her husband, Ryan, when she was suddenly attacked by a hippo that was said to be protecting her calf.
The couple was on a guided canoe safari on Zimbabwe’s Zambezi River. Led by tour operator Wild Horizons, the safari group had three guests and two guides. While canoeing down the river, one of the guides spotted the hippo on the river’s right bank. He reportedly instructed the group to paddle to the left side of the river to avoid the hippo, an animal known for its aggression, especially during calving season.
As the Yaldors paddled to the other side, a hippo appeared under their canoe and flipped it over, Wild Horizons told ABC News. The hippo pulled Kristen Yaldor beneath the water as she was trying to swim to the riverbank. Meanwhile, Ryan Yaldor, who was thrown from the canoe toward the riverbank, swam to the shore in less than 30 seconds. He turned around and called for his wife, and she emerged from the water — with her leg inside the hippo’s mouth.
Kristen Yaldor punched the hippo in the face several times, and it finally released her. She was able to swim to the shore, where her husband helped her out of the water and the head guide reportedly administered first aid. She was airlifted to a clinic in Zimbabwe about 45 minutes later.
From the clinic, she was transferred to a hospital in Johannesburg, an ordeal that took 14 hours after the initial attack. The pressure of the hippo’s clenched teeth caused a ragged fracture in Kristen Yaldor’s right femur. She has already received two surgeries to repair the broken bone and remove dead tissue, and she might possibly need further operations.
The attack happened on Kristen Yaldor’s 37th birthday. The couple told ABC that they were never warned it was calving season for hippos, which might make them more aggressive.
Wild Horizons, which has operated tours in the Victoria Falls region of Zimbabwe for nearly 30 years, told ABC it has strict safety protocols, including a pre-safari safety briefing and instructions on how to properly paddle and steer the canoe. Backup vehicles also follow the canoes down the river, the tour company said, and guides are provided cell phones and handheld radios for emergencies.
The Yaldors say the guides couldn’t reach anyone for help on the radios, and their cell phones did not work from the location on the river bank, causing a delay in medical assistance.
TPG reached out to Wild Horizons for more information but did not receive a response by time of publication.
In its statement to ABC, the tour company said it takes every safety precaution possible on its safaris. “We would like to stress that while our guides are expertly trained and qualified to manage trips such as these, and that every preparation is painstakingly made,” the company said. “Nature is unpredictable.”
Humans. No other animal in the multi billion history of life on earth comes even close.
I have to laugh when the latest franchise in the Jurassic Park movies implies that humans are in trouble now the dinosaurs are loose in the world. If a t-rex was strolling around in my neck of the woods, my friends and I could easily take it out with the contents in our closets.
.375 H&H and up are proven. Hippos are not to be screwed with. If you have to ask what caliber, you’re not ready to tackle the job.
Just challenge it to an arm-wrestling match and watch it walk away in shame...
I’ll say the African buffalo is the most dangerous animal to humans.
Don't worry. I don't have plans to visit Africa, much less hunt hippos.
I think Capstick talked about the Cape buffalo wounded and leopard wounded loose in the thorn brush. Each offered their own challenges he said. Hippos were also pointed out as an issue to go toward a water source. Capstick wrote some great accounts of dangers in Africa. It ain’t a petting zoo and neither is Yellowstone.
I hate it when that happens... It's one of the reasons, many years ago, that I gave up using the DC Metro...
Mosquitoes.
But your point is well taken.
L
It’s the mosquito.
L
“The couple told ABC that they were never warned it was calving season for hippos, which might make them more aggressive.”
Oh brother. Here comes the lawsuit. The idiot should have done her homework before embarking on such a dangerous trip.
I was out in Masai Mara with my dad and a friend once, and we were walking about 300 yards from our car down a river bank to see if we could see any hippos. Sure enough, as we walked along the top of a high bank, we saw about 10 hippos on the opposite side of the river, on a sand bar, near the water. The river was about 50 feet wide at this point and quite deep.
Well, one thing led to another, and we attracted the attention of one of the big hippos, who stood up and walked casually into the water and disappeared from view beneath the surface.
Well, we didn’t think much about it at first, but after the hippo was missing for about 30 seconds, I grabbed my father and our friend and started pulling them back toward the car. We got about 100 yards along, and the big hippo came crashing up the bank right where we had been standing a minute before. We ran as fast as we could to the car and just barely had enough time to jump in and slam the doors before the hippo was on us.
Fortunately, he did not attack the car. We were in a little Toyota Cressida, so that would not have gone well for us. But if we had not started back to the car when we did, the hippo would have been on us before we had a chance to react. We would have never made it to the car, just another statistic.
Moral of the Story... Hippos are fast on land, at least in a sprint. Faster than me, and faster than you. If you are planning to outrun a hippo, it is best to begin with a healthy head-start.
She’s lucky. Hippos can be downright deadly when they get pissed off.
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I always laugh when I watch the 1st Jurassic Park movie and Dr. Grant explains how the kids don’t have to be afraid of the brachiosaurus as it is just like a big cow. Not all herbivores are docile. Rhinos and hippos being two notably aggressive and dangerous species.
Mosquito.
Don't worry about that Buffalo... He is just a big cow!
She was a pretty feisty lady to punch the hippo. That said canoes & hippos don’t mix in my world. She was involved in a risky adventure and the luck didn’t break her way. Too bad she can’t be transferred stateside.
Exactly. For such an exotic trip she should have done her research. Lots of dangers in Zimbabwe.
Folks should read “The Maneaters of Tsavo” by John H Patterson. Only a small portion of it was dedicated to the two Tsavo lions. It chronicles Patterson’s time in Africa at a time when development was in the early stages and covers his exploits taking Rhino, Hippos, and others. This was in a time a lot of show stopping calibers were in their infancy. Great read and the lions were on display in Chicago. Saw them as a young 8th grade boy. A memory that I’ll probably never forget.
“The picture below is of the Upper Hill area of Nairobi, Kenya. It did not exist just ten years ago.”
I was wondering where that $10 trillion went to that 0bama grifted from the U.S Taxpayer.
I must admit my only experience with shooting critters in the water were popping red sliders in the farm ponds with a .22 so I can’t really argue with any conviction one way or another. Just knew that you had to get the suckers on a log or just near the surface or they got away.
Hardly “authoritative experience”
Anyhow, if a hippo was charging me I’d want as big a gun as I could get my hands on and start shooting at it and not the space between me and thee, Mr Hippo!(grins)
2nd most dangerous animal in Africa.
Can you guess the first?
Cape buffalo
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