A British teenager who was attacked by a crocodile on her gap year in Africa has relived the terrifying moment she was dragged under water and forced to fight for her life.
Amelie Osborn-Smith, 18, was white water rafting along the Zambezi River at Victoria Falls when she was trapped in a death roll by a 10ft croc in November.
The backpacker, from Andover, Hampshire, described the moment she felt something near her legs as she swam backwards towards the raft.
She told how she initially thought it was her friend but then realised he was in line with her head and not her legs and then spotted the croc in the water.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, she said: "I looked down and I saw the tail of it go over my legs because it was obviously measuring me up before it attacked me."
Amelie said she couldn't breathe after the reptile grabbed her right leg and immediately pulled her under water.
But her friend, who was also in the water, managed to grab onto the shoulders of her life jacket while she kicked the beast.
"You just think how do I get out? How do we escape this? At that point, I was just so ridiculously grateful that my friend was in the water," she said.
"I thought 'as long as he keeps hold of me and I keep kicking, we will get out of this situation'," she added.
Amelie was pulled to safety and back onto the raft when she realised she had "literally fought for her life," she recalled.
She now hopes to return to Zambia to help build a school for the local people who she met on her travels.
Her efforts are a way to bring positivity to her experience and helps her get through her treatment and multiple operations, she explained.
But Amelie said the most difficult part of her ordeal was having to wait 45 minutes for a helicopter while bleeding and lying on a rock with no pain relief.
She said: "No one could get signal and when you're lying on the side of a rock, and you're trying not to bleed to death, you just think how will I get through this?"
The brave teen remembers her friend holding her hand and telling her "don't look at your legs", but she told him "it's okay, tell them to amputate both my legs."
She added: "I looked down and I knew in my head that there was no saving my legs and I said that it's fine. I nearly lost my life, losing my legs compared to that is nothing."
Amelie has since had seven operations, and will likely have more, but can now walk on crutches.
But she is hoping to start university in September, and said she feels "unbelievably grateful".
She added: "Obviously what happened was terrible, but I can't change it and I was so lucky to have people around me I did.
"It's kind of a reality check and makes you realise how lucky you are and how amazing life is."
Amelie's parents had to jump through hoops to get their daughter home following the attack when Zambia was on the UK red list.
Speaking nearer the time, her dad Brent said she "fought back with great courage and refused to be subdued or taken under" as the crocodile tried to twist into its notorious death roll.
The former army major, 60, said the "quick thinking and intervention" of others repulsed the beast's attack but Amelie was left in a bad way.
Medics dubbed her "one hell of a brave girl" after she was rescued with one lower leg ripped to shreds and her "right foot left hanging loose."
The horrific incident happened shortly after the guides stopped the tour for lunch in a quiet stretch between rapids.
