My Australian Hunting Guide Nearly Lost His Hand to a Massive Saltwater Crocodile

The .425 Westley Richards rested solidly in the fork of a paperbark tree. In a small opening I saw a water buffalo slowly walking toward the swamp. At 125 yards the shot was simple, and I put it right behind the bull’s shoulder.

“Hit him ag—” ordered my guide. The second shot was on its way before Joe Wilson finished his words. My second bullet hit two inches from the first.

“Shoot it behind the ear!” he urged.

Ordinarily a soft-spoken man, Wilson clearly wanted the bull to drop on dry land. But by then the bull was in the trees. Then it fell, dead, in the swamp.

“You’re going to have to skin and quarter that thing by yourself while I stand watch for crocs,” Wilson said, matter of fact. “As soon as blood hits the water, crocs will probably start showing up.”

Wilson had good reason to be leery of the giant saltwater crocodiles lurking in the swamps of northern Australia. Seven months before, one had torn off Wilson’s hand. Our hunt was his first since the attack.

Attacked by a Saltwater Crocodile

“I was with a client hunting buffalo not far from here,” Wilson told me on that hunt in 1998. “It was getting dark and we needed to pitch camp. We crossed a small section of water, no more than two meters wide, but the bank was too steep and muddy to get the quad up so I took a few pieces of rebar, bent them and hammered them into the bank for traction so we could climb out.”

With the crude camp in place, Wilson grabbed a pail to fetch water. Standing on the rebar he’d pounded into the bank, he bent and dipped the bucket into the water. As he lifted the pail, a giant croc lunged out of the water, biting the pail and Wilson’s right hand.

“I fell backward against the bank, planting my feet in for leverage,” Wilson said. “It was a full moon. The night sky was bright and I could see all that was going on. When the croc tried pulling me in I dug my feet into the rebar. If it wasn’t for that rebar, I would have been dead right then.”

Wilson doesn’t wear boots when hunting. Instead, he hunts barefoot because it’s quieter. (He hadn’t worn shoes or boots during our 10-day buffalo hunt, other than to occasionally drive the quad. One day, he got a foxtail seed lodged in the webbing between his big toe and second toe. Three days later it festered and became infected. He took a knife, cut in from the top of his foot and pulled out the seed. Blood and puss oozed from the wound. We sat there a few minutes to let it drain. Wilson packed the gash with mud and we kept hunting. He didn’t flinch or complain once.)

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With Wilson’s bare feet dug into the rebar, the croc used its weight to try and pull him in. But the water was shallow and the thick bodied crocodile couldn’t get any deeper.

“That’s when I felt the croc’ relax, and I knew exactly what was happening,” Wilson said. “The croc spring-loaded and lunged out of the water to get a better grip on me. I anticipated it and when the croc let go of my hand to gain a firmer hold, I fell back and quickly yanked my hand over my head. The croc’ fell across my body and latched onto my hand, again. Thankfully it missed my head.”

The giant animal tried pulling Wilson back into the water. This time Wilson knew something had to give. “My legs were quivering from the strain and I could feel my back and shoulder muscles ripping,” he said. Wilson was in a tug-of-war with an ancient predator, and his arm was the rope.

As he felt his legs about to give out, with all his might, Wilson jabbed the croc in the eye with his other thumb. That made the croc twist, and, when it did, Wilson’s hand was pulled off at the wrist.

At the same time, the client arrived and fired a shot at the crocodile. From first bite to that shot, the whole attack unfolded in a matter of seconds. The hunter had scrambled as fast as he could to help his guide. The croc was never seen again.

Wilson grabbed his wrist, squeezing the bloody stump as he ran up the bank to camp. That’s when he felt something hitting his elbow. It was his hand, still hanging by a small tendon that had been ripped halfway down his forearm.

He grabbed a towel and ice, wrapped his hand and wrist in it, then the two men took off driving through the sandy soil and paperbark forests. The going was slow. Three hours and two flat tires later (which they didn’t take time to fix), they arrived at an Aboriginal village. All remote villages have a pay phone. Wilson made an emergency call to Darwin, explained what happened and what road they were on. Over an hour later a plane met Wilson on the main road. Two hours later, Wilson was on the operating table, certain he’d wake up with no hand. He didn’t care. He was just happy to be alive.

Following eight hours of surgery, Wilson was shocked to awake and see his hand reattached. It was mangled, but there.

“The surgeon said the cut was so clean he decided to try to reconnect it,” Wilson said. “When they joined the arteries, the blood instantly flowed and color returned to the hand, so they reattached it.”

Three weeks later gangrene set in, and Wilson almost died. After several touch-and-go days in the hospital, Wilson was released, hand intact.

Challenges of Hunting the Outback

The first day I hunted with Wilson we went on a walkabout. He had guiding rights on some of the most prime Aboriginal lands in the Australian Outback. It was 113 degrees and we hiked more than 15 miles. We didn’t stop for lunch or snacks, only a few sips of water. This was only the second guided hunt of my life; the first was in Africa. I grew up hunting and lived a semi-subsistence life in the Alaskan Arctic where moose, Dall sheep, and caribou were regular staples. I also ran an extensive wolf trapline in some of the harshest elements on earth. I knew my stuff, but I had to prove that to Wilson.

“Congratulations, you passed the test,” Wilson told me that night in the low glow of our minuscule campfire. “You’re worthy of the big buffalo I’ve been after. If clients can’t do what we did today, I won’t take them after a big bull because they can’t handle it and don’t deserve it. The buffalo we’re after is no doubt a world record, with horns spanning well over nine feet wide. It’s not going to be easy.”

The next day we cut what Wilson believed was the track of the giant bull. We followed it until dark. At night we slept on mats. We didn’t have tents or sleeping bags — it was too hot. Wilson hunted, still barefoot, in the same tattered long-sleeve shirt and thin shorts every day. His bed roll was a multi-purpose oiled jacket.

The following morning we were on the track at first light. We followed it until dark. We’d covered nearly 30 miles those two days. “We’re getting close,” whispered Wilson. “We’ll camp here tonight, but if the bugs get bad we might have to move.”

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We were on the edge of a swamp where the bull’s tracks led. It was peaceful, and the sounds of birds I’d never before heard filled the air. Then all went silent. The birds were asleep. Buffalo could be heard splashing in the swamp and grunting for miles. Then came one of the most unforgettable moments of my hunting career.

The mosquitos arrived with a sound like the start of an air show, where planes fire up their big engines. The insects were so loud, Wilson and I literally had to shout to hear one another even as we stood side-by-side.

Instantly we were covered in biting mosquitos. No repellent worked. Quickly we gathered armfuls of wet, green grass and the largest leaves we could find, then ran to dry ground in the forest. Wilson got a fire started while I gathered more greenery. Within 20 minutes we had a smokey fire roaring.

I tried counting the mosquito bites on my skin, and lost track after 100. We stood in smoke the entire night, turning and adding all the greenery we could to keep it smoking hard. The temperature was brutal, barely dropping below 100, and the fire and smoke made it worse. Daylight couldn’t come fast enough.

We spent the next two days searching for the big bull’s tracks. We never found them. We passed up what I thought were exceptional bulls, but Wilson assured me they paled in comparison to the one we were after.

By day eight we were fighting a losing battle. We’d been out of food for three days and our fresh water had run out two days prior. Every day the temperatures reached over 110. We lived off wild nuts that felt like rocks and had no flavor. There was no fresh water only saltwater in the swamps we hunted. To stay hydrated we ate green ants; their little abdomens tasted like lemon juice. They were thirst quenching. Every nest we found we devoured. We must have eaten thousands of them.

Butchering a Buff Underwater

On the last day of the hunt, we’d hiked in a full circle back to where we’d left our four-wheeler days prior.

“Once those big bulls hit the swamps they might stay out there for days, and there’s no way of getting to them,” Wilson relayed. “I promise you that swamp is loaded with world-record buffalo.”

He was right. Sixteen years later, I hunted the same area and flew over it in a helicopter. The number and size of the water buffalo blew my mind. There was no way to reach them. If the mosquitos didn’t kill you, the crocs’ would.

We held out as long as we could for an exceptional bull, and I was content leaving with no buffalo. Then Wilson said a nearby village would welcome the meat.

The bull I shot was old, it’s horns worn and polished shiny black. It was well below the average size of bulls we’d passed but I didn’t care. It was a meat bull for the village.

While Wilson stood watch on dry land, I stripped off my pants, boots, and socks and got to work. The buffalo was only in a foot of water. The water was warm and the mud soft, thick, and sticky. I sank to my knees in mud. It wasn’t easy to move. Most of my cuts on the bull were made blind, underwater.

When I cut as much of the hide as I could, I hopped onto the buff to work on the other side. My legs were heavy with mud. I clinched the knife handle in my teeth and used both hands to push the mud off my legs. It was like clay and barely moved. I kept pushing and pushing, squeezing harder. That’s when I realized most of the mud I was trying to shed wasn’t mud, but leeches. Both legs were covered in black leeches, many over three inches long.

I sat on the buffalo and started furiously plucking leeches from my legs. Some were so firmly attached I had to peel them off with the knife blade. Fortunately, there were no bleeders. Hopping off the other side of the bull, I continued skinning.

Every 10 minutes Wilson would remind me of the parasites. That’s when I hopped up on the buffalo and picked off more leeches. It was nonstop.

Five hours later, all four quarters and the backstraps were hanging in trees. Next came the horns and cape. Most of the cutting commenced underwater. No crocs’ showed up so Wilson helped me with the blocky, heavy head. We told ourselves the water was likely too shallow for crocs.

We stayed in the water too long. By the time we lugged the cape and head to shore, our legs were covered in leeches again. By then I had one bleeder, Wilson had two, one in each leg. We packed them with mud which quickly hardened.

Wilson made a three-hour round-trip run to the nearest Aboriginal village. I waited with the rest of the meat, watching for crocs. We got the rest of the meat, cape, and horns loaded on the quad and headed out.

“The chief of the village wants to meet you,” Wilson told me as I began to drive. (His reattached hand lacked dexterity and strength, and it was still very painful for him. I did most of the driving.)

 When we gave the rest of the meat to the chief of the village, he was very pleased. In return he gifted me a 9 foot spear he’d made by hand. It was built of a tough wood that only grew along a small escarpment near the village. He had dyed it black and red with a mineralized soil that looked like paint. Over the years, he said, he’d killed a number of water buffalo and saltwater crocodiles with it.

The chief would sit behind trees for the buffalo, driving the spear into them as they walked by on trails they’d been using for decades. For the crocodiles, he’d hunt them from a dugout canoe. When he saw a croc in shallow water, he’d slowly and quietly approach. The croc wouldn’t swim off; instead, it would sink to the shallow bottom and hold there. The hunter would position the boat over the croc, then thrust the spear into its walnut-sized brain.

The chief’s spear hangs in my office, over the head of the water buffalo. It wasn’t a big bull, but it was one of the animals I’d worked the hardest for. It deserved, I had decided, a place in my home.

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Every day that I look at these two gems, the entirety of my hunt in Australia comes to life. They remind me how hunting takes us to corners of the world we’d otherwise never see, and introduces us to fine people we’d otherwise never know.

A few years following our hunt together, Wilson sent me a picture. The enclosed note simply said, “Survived another one.”

It was a photo of him lying in a hospital bed, hundreds of stitches visible around his abdomen and back. They were in the perfect shape of a large saltwater crocodile mouth.

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