An 18-year-old Australian man jumped into crocodile-infested waters to impress a girl. He nearly lost his arm, but he did score a date.
Lee De Paauw was attacked by a crocodile last year in his efforts to impress Sophie Paterson, a young British tourist. After numerous alcoholic beverages, De Paauw told the young lady that “backpackers are more likely to get eaten by a crocodile than Australians.” To “test the theory,” he decided to jump into the dangerous waters.
“I was thinking, s***, I’m gone,” he said of the moment a crocodile first attacked him. “I’m gone for sure.”
The crocodile bit his arm and took him under. Though he suffered serious damage to his arm, the Aussie was able to escape the attack by punching the animal in the snout and then gouging its eye. “I punched it in the snout and on my second hit I got it straight in the eye and then it let go,” he told 9 News.
“Do you understand that most of the country thinks you’re one of the stupidest people around right now?” asked the reporter.
“Yup,” responded De Paauw, though he said he does not agree with such an assessment.
And, stunningly, he does not regret his actions.
“I done it for Sophie; she’s beautiful, caring, and kind,” he said of Paterson, with whom he managed to score a movie date.
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Paterson told The Star Online that she was not impressed with De Paauw’s decision to risk his life to impress her. “I’d have to be quite twisted to be impressed by that,” she said, though she added that his upbeat demeanor post-attack was “brave.”
“You’ve seen ‘Jaws,'” she said, describing the horror scene she witnessed. “It was kind of like that. There was a lot of blood, a lot of bone, it was pretty horrendous.”
De Paauw said he does not want the crocodile that attacked him to be killed. “I want that crocodile home, and I want it released in the wild, and I want it to have a happy life,” he said.
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