Australian man fights off crocodile with pocketknife

A fishing trip for a 60-year-old man in northern Australia turned into a life-or-death experience when a crocodile suddenly attacked, local authorities said on Wednesday.

The man was able to fend off the apex predator in the end with some quick thinking and his trusty pocketknife.

What happened?

The man was out fishing on a remote river in the northern Cape York Peninsula when the attack occurred.

He'd positioned himself on a riverbank and was shooing away cattle when the crocodile suddenly struck.

"He described seeing the crocodile seconds before it lunged at him, knocking him over as he was about to cast his fishing rod," Queensland's state environment department said in a statement.

The 4-meter (13-foot) crocodile chomped down on the man's boots and, after a brief back-and-forth, pulled the man into the water.

Just as he went under, the man reached for a pocketknife in his belt and "stabbed the crocodile in its head until it let him go."

"The odds of doing that are about zero," said the state environment department's Matt Brien.

Why did the crocodile attack?

Wildlife officials believe that the croc was targeting the bovine bull on the riverbank when the 60-year-old man happened to get in the way.

"It appears that the crocodile was targeting the bull or the cow at the time, and he's just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time," Brien said.

'A real Crocodile Dundee'

Astonishingly, the man managed to crawl up the riverbank following the attack and even drive himself to the nearest hospital — where he was then transported for further treatment to a hospital in Cairns, around five hours away.

While hailed in local media as "a real Crocodile Dundee," authorities made clear that the near-death experience was no laughing matter.

Although he is now in stable condition, the 60-year-old is "quite traumatized" by the attack.

"It's an absolutely harrowing experience. He won't forget that in a long time," Brien said.

Locals and tourists alike have been warned to steer clear of waterways known to be inhabited by saltwater crocodiles. Once hunted to the verge off extinction, the massive reptiles' population numbers have been booming ever since being declared a protected species in 1971.

rs/msh (AFP, dpa)