A tour guide recalls the terrifying moment he was swallowed by a hippo and had his arm crushed

• Paul Templer barely survived a hippo attack after a pod capsized his group's canoe when he was 28.
• He found himself inside a hippo's mouth three times and was swallowed up to his waist twice.

A tour guide has recounted his terrifying experience of surviving a hippo attack that killed his colleague and took his arm when he was 28.

Paul Templer and three apprentice guides were ferrying tourists around Zimbabwe's Zambezi River in canoes in 1998 when they came across a large pod of hippopotamuses, he told CNN.

They were trying to safely navigate around the pod when the back of one of the canoes was suddenly catapulted into the air, jettisoning a tour guide, called Evans, into the water.

The tourist remained safely on the canoe, which at that point was lifted half out of the water on the back of a two-ton bull, Templer told The Guardian in 2013.

While the tourists were brought to safety on a rock that was out of reach for the hippos, Evans was quickly drifting towards a hippopotamus and her calf — a dangerous place to be, per CNN. Templer lunged to rescue Evans in his own canoe.

As he almost reached Evans, "the water between us just erupted," said Templer per CNN.

'I realized I was up to my waist down a hippo's throat'

Suddenly, "my world went dark and strangely quiet," said Templer to CNN.

Templer said he was engulfed in darkness. "It was as if I had suddenly gone blind and deaf," Templer told The Guardian in 2013.

As he came to, it took him a few moments to realize what had happened. He could feel the water in the river from the waist down, but his torso felt oddly warm and slimy, he told The Guardian.

"My arms were trapped but I managed to free one hand and felt around – my palm passed through the wiry bristles of the hippo's snout. It was only then that I realized I was underwater, trapped up to my waist in his mouth," he told The Guardian.

Suddenly, he was let go. Templer reckons he was so far down the hippo's throat, that it must have proven uncomfortable for the creature who spat him out, according to CNN.

Templer scrambled to the surface and had enough wits about him to suck in a lungful of air. But that wasn't the end of the attack.

Templer reached for Evans when he was grabbed by the hippo once again. He was swallowed up, from the feet up this time, so that his torso and arms were free. He reached for his gun, but the hippo was thrashing him around so much it was impossible to navigate.

Once again, Templer was spat out. Evans had disappeared, so Templer swam away from danger. But he wasn't safe yet.

Templer survived being in the hippo's mouth three times

"I look under my arm – and until my dying day I'll remember this – there's this hippo charging in towards me with his mouth wide open bearing in before he scores a direct hit," he told CNN.

A third time, Templer found himself inside the hippo's mouth, this time with arms and legs dangling either side of its mouth.

As the hippo let go, another guide called pulled up in his kayak, risking his own life to save Templer's, and managed to pull him to safety.

Templer eventually managed to join the others on the rock, but he didn't make it out unscathed. Blood was spurting out of his mouth, as the hippo had torn a hole in his back piercing through to his lung. The other guides who knew first aid patched him up best they could with plastic wrap from their snack packs.

Templer's arm and foot were mangled. A doctor later counted almost 40 puncture wounds and bite marks on his body, he told The Guardian.

After hours of pain on the eight-hour drive to medical help and several surgeries, Templer awoke to find his left arm gone, but thankful that he had kept both legs, he told CNN.

The whole attack took no longer than about three minutes, Templer recollected to CNN.

Evans, however, didn't make it. His body was found three days later.

Stay away from hippos, experts warn

Hippos don't aim to attack humans, Rebecca Lewinson, a conservation ecologist and associate professor at San Diego State University, told CNN.

Lewison told CNN that if you stay away from them, they generally do not attack.

Giving them a wide berth, knowing their patterns to avoid running into them, and recognizing signs that they feel threatened — such as wide open mouth, grunting, and head waving — should give humans plenty of protection from an encounter with the behemoth animals.

Once the hippo has got hold of a human, though, there's very little that can be done. These animals are huge, big enough to hold an adult male in their mouth whole, so there's little a human can do to put them off once in their grasp.

The best bet is to just leave them be, experts told CNN.