Sunday Mail (Adelaide, Australia) 8/20/11 by Emily Watkins
It had come down to one final decision: drown or be eaten alive.
After a full half-hour of clinging to mangroves, fighting against a crocodile for his life, Todd Bairstow was ready to give up. He had even tried to throw his dog at the growling beast in the hope it would eat that instead - but nothing would loosen its grip.
"I was just about to let go - I couldn't do it anymore," he said. "It felt like my arms were just going to snap off. "I was thinking: right, do I drown myself or get eaten alive?"
The Port Pirie mine worker had been fishing alone on the bank of a Weipa river, in Queensland's north, in March. He was reeling in the line after his first cast when the 3.2m estuarine crocodile launched itself out of the water and latched on to his leg.
Growling like a dog, the croc knocked him over and tried to drag him into the water. Now, five months and 13 operations later, Mr Bairstow, 29, has finally returned home.
"My life flashed before my eyes. I was thinking about not having kids and that," he said. "I thought about how upset Mum and Dad would be - it was just flash, flash, flash."
Mr Bairstow said he had managed to grab hold of a mangrove as the crocodile tried to drag him into the river. While he clung to its branches, the croc tried to death roll him three times while it held his legs in its jaws, dislocating both of his knees. He heard them pop as the croc tried to twist him around.
As minute by minute ticked by, Mr Bairstow yelled desperately for help as he tried to poke it in the eyes and hit it on the head. "If I had a knife I might have been able to get it in the eyes," he said. "But none of it made any difference."
In a desperate last ditch effort, Mr Bairstow even tried to feed his dog - a three-month-old puppy that had been yapping the entire time - to the hungry croc. "I went to throw him over my shoulder to the croc, but he took off and left me by myself," he said.
"It was a lonely place to be."
He was just about to let go and be dragged into the murky water when he heard a woman's voice: "Help's coming, love". "It gave me a second wind," he said. The woman had heard him screaming from a pub about 350m up the creek, and within minutes his mate, Kevin Beven, was on the bank, pulling him from the beast's jaws.
"And then these four Aboriginal fellas arrived, hitting the croc with rocks and sticks until it p---ed off back into the water," Mr Bairstow said. His Port Pirie parents, Luke and Cathy, left town as soon as they heard of the attack on March 9, and flew out of Adelaide the next day.
"I thought, 'If he got attacked by a croc, you don't survive'," Luke Bairstow said. "If he survived, he's got to have horrific injuries, but the main thing was that he was still with us." Luke and Cathy spent two months at their son's Cairns hospital bedside, wanting to stay until he could walk with crutches.
He is finally back in the family home while he does physiotherapy every day and attends specialist appointments once a month in Adelaide. Mr Bairstow had been living away from Port Pirie for eight years, working in mines in the Kimberleys, Northern Territory and Cape York.
He said he may need yet another operation on one of his knees, and spent his days cycling, walking and doing weights as physiotherapy. He said he hoped to be back at his Rio Tinto job in north Queensland at the end of this year.
It had come down to one final decision: drown or be eaten alive.
After a full half-hour of clinging to mangroves, fighting against a crocodile for his life, Todd Bairstow was ready to give up. He had even tried to throw his dog at the growling beast in the hope it would eat that instead - but nothing would loosen its grip.
"I was just about to let go - I couldn't do it anymore," he said. "It felt like my arms were just going to snap off. "I was thinking: right, do I drown myself or get eaten alive?"
The Port Pirie mine worker had been fishing alone on the bank of a Weipa river, in Queensland's north, in March. He was reeling in the line after his first cast when the 3.2m estuarine crocodile launched itself out of the water and latched on to his leg.
Growling like a dog, the croc knocked him over and tried to drag him into the water. Now, five months and 13 operations later, Mr Bairstow, 29, has finally returned home.
"My life flashed before my eyes. I was thinking about not having kids and that," he said. "I thought about how upset Mum and Dad would be - it was just flash, flash, flash."
Mr Bairstow said he had managed to grab hold of a mangrove as the crocodile tried to drag him into the river. While he clung to its branches, the croc tried to death roll him three times while it held his legs in its jaws, dislocating both of his knees. He heard them pop as the croc tried to twist him around.
As minute by minute ticked by, Mr Bairstow yelled desperately for help as he tried to poke it in the eyes and hit it on the head. "If I had a knife I might have been able to get it in the eyes," he said. "But none of it made any difference."
In a desperate last ditch effort, Mr Bairstow even tried to feed his dog - a three-month-old puppy that had been yapping the entire time - to the hungry croc. "I went to throw him over my shoulder to the croc, but he took off and left me by myself," he said.
"It was a lonely place to be."
He was just about to let go and be dragged into the murky water when he heard a woman's voice: "Help's coming, love". "It gave me a second wind," he said. The woman had heard him screaming from a pub about 350m up the creek, and within minutes his mate, Kevin Beven, was on the bank, pulling him from the beast's jaws.
"And then these four Aboriginal fellas arrived, hitting the croc with rocks and sticks until it p---ed off back into the water," Mr Bairstow said. His Port Pirie parents, Luke and Cathy, left town as soon as they heard of the attack on March 9, and flew out of Adelaide the next day.
"I thought, 'If he got attacked by a croc, you don't survive'," Luke Bairstow said. "If he survived, he's got to have horrific injuries, but the main thing was that he was still with us." Luke and Cathy spent two months at their son's Cairns hospital bedside, wanting to stay until he could walk with crutches.
He is finally back in the family home while he does physiotherapy every day and attends specialist appointments once a month in Adelaide. Mr Bairstow had been living away from Port Pirie for eight years, working in mines in the Kimberleys, Northern Territory and Cape York.
He said he may need yet another operation on one of his knees, and spent his days cycling, walking and doing weights as physiotherapy. He said he hoped to be back at his Rio Tinto job in north Queensland at the end of this year.
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