

In Zimbabwe, news reports of the attack, and accounts by the tour company, characterized her as a reckless tourist who got too close to the wildlife. Her family and friends made her laugh: They brought Hungry Hungry Hippos and a hippo-emblazoned T-shirt and joked that the hippo just wanted to give her a birthday kiss. They couldn’t tell her what to expect because they didn’t know what to expect.īut she cannot remember specifically ever being scared. Her doctors had never treated injuries like these, inflicted in this particular way, she said. Related: A Florida couple planned a dream vacation in Zimbabwe.

Ryan got tired of hearing that their insurance “hasn’t authorized this yet.” Kristen got tired of lying on her back.
#HIPO GIRLS SKIN#
Then 36 hours on a cramped medical flight as it made a seven-stop U-shape from Africa to Florida, and then a week and a half at Tampa General Hospital to replace the rod in her leg and get a skin graft. Then a trauma unit in Johannesburg - surgeries every other day for two weeks, her leg wound open until two types of bacteria from the river water subsided.

A local hospital offered tetanus shots, morphine and an X-ray on a “very old X-ray machine” that misdiagnosed her femur injury as a hairline fracture. The weeks that followed Kristen’s hippo attack were a marathon of hospitals and surgeries. As he told The Guardian in 2013, “time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth.” Paul Templer, perhaps the most well-known hippo attack survivor, was nearly swallowed whole by one of the huge mammals he emerged with gaping chest wounds and ultimately lost an arm but went on to work as a motivational speaker. As adults, they can weigh between 3,000 and 9,900 pounds. In Africa, hippos kill an estimated 500 people a year. Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started. “Do you want me to sing you happy birthday?” in the U.S., but her mother picked up anyway. She borrowed Ryan’s phone in between his calls. Now she couldn’t do much but watch as people stopped on the safari trail across the river, taking a break from watching animals to watch her. Ryan worked his cell phone, trying to get an emergency helicopter to the river.Īll her life, she had moved at her preferred speed: perpetually ahead of schedule, traveling the world, physically adept on land and under the water. She tried to keep her heart rate low - she couldn’t tell how badly she was bleeding. She didn’t know yet, but she had a broken femur. Now, on the shore, the pain started to come through. She knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to dislodge herself, but as it loosened its grip, she thought she must have spooked it. Instinct took over, settling with a calm she’d honed scuba-diving with sharks: Hold your breath. It didn’t hurt, she would say later, at least not immediately. But something clamped down on her right leg, yanked her underwater and tossed her side to side like a dog with a chew toy. She was maybe five strokes away from land. She popped to the surface and saw Ryan swimming to shore.
