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Graphic Crocodile Attack Video Shows Moment Animal Trainer’s Arm Bitten In Half As Onlookers Gasp In Horror

By Bradley Ryder
Published on: 04:18 PST, Jan 4, 2017

A man escaped with his life after a vicious crocodile attack left his arm broken in half. The gruesome moment was caught on tape by an amateur videographer.

Sumet Thongkhammuan is an animal trainer at the Bung Boraphet “Show of Crocodiles” in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand. During a New Year’s Eve 2017 show, he was brutally mauled by a large reptile as he teased the animal with his arm.

The trainer is seen on video prodding the croc with a stick while he stood just feet away. Then, while the animal’s mouth is agape, the man gets on his knees and shows his arm to a crowd of onlookers.

Next, the unthinkable happens: the crocodile attacks the man’s arm by locking onto it with its deadly jaws. An audience member, Duangruedi Di Satefano, recorded the entire attack using her mobile phone.

After the crocodile locks its jaws down on the struggling man’s arm, it flips him over in a move called the “death roll.” It’s a maneuver crocodiles use in the water to drown their victims before moving in to consume them. Moreover, the reptiles swallow their food whole; their mouths are not designed to chew food.

Moments later, the man manages to free his arm from the crocodile’s rows of teeth. The footage showed him holding up his mangled arm that appeared broken in half. He held it up above his heart and walked away for medical treatment. His hand appeared to just dangle, as Di Satefano describes.

“It was very scary. The man’s hand was broken in half. He was very lucky to still be alive.”

The crocodile attack is Thailand’s third incident in less than a week. In another near-deadly encounter, a trainer was attacked when a crocodile bit down on his wrist. Ironically, he mimicked the animal’s roll to break free. And in the third attack, a woman visiting from France was taking a selfie when she was mauled by a crocodile.

National Geographic reported about a 2012 study that claimed crocodiles have the largest bite pressure of any known living animal. What is more, data suggests that a croc’s chompers may have rivaled those of a Tyrannosaurus rex (or T.rex).

Lead study author and paleobiologist, Gregory M. Erickson, and other researchers looked at the bite ratios of 23 other living reptiles in the crocodilian family. The results were staggering.

Saltwater crocodiles are the largest living reptiles — and most ferocious — according to Nature. Adult males can reach 20-feet-long and weigh over 2,000 pounds. Results from the study showed bite pressures of 3,700 pounds per square inch (psi) which equals 16,460 newtons.

A newton (N) is named after mathematician Sir Isaac Newton. Encyclopædia Britannica defines the measurement as “the absolute unit of force in the International System of Units (SI units). It is defined as that force necessary to provide a mass of one kilogram with an acceleration of one meter per second per second.”

“We tested several 17-foot [5-meter] saltwater crocs. If you scale the results up to 20-footers, you get estimates of 7,700 pounds [34,250 newtons], which is the low end of T. rex bite-force estimates.

Erickson says that to get an idea of how much power the extinct T.rex had in the form of its bit, one only has to examine today’s crocodile.

The American alligator is a close cousin of the crocodile. However, there are some distinguishing features and traits that set them apart as Nature explains. For one, the alligator’s snout is round whereas the crocs’ is elongated.

Although both apex predators are carnivores, crocodiles are the only of the two known to prey on humans. With that said, the trainer is lucky things didn’t go worse for him during the show.

[Featured Image by pailoolom/iStock by Getty Images]

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