A brave British teenager who narrowly escaped death after being mauled by a crocodile on a rafting trip has taken her first steps since the terrifying attack.
Amelie Osborn-Smith, 18, from Andover, Hampshire, was spending time in Zambia on her gap year when a white water rafting trip took a horrific turn.
While in the water, she started swimming back to the raft when she felt something go across her legs, the teen told Sky News.
At first Amelie thought it was a friend until she “looked down and saw the crocodile ”.
She she saw the beast swim under and around her to “measure the size of me”, before it snapped and dragged her underwater.
Although she couldn’t breathe, her pal held on to her life jacket by the shoulders as she desperately kicked the creature.
She said: “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.”
After being saved, she had to wait 45 minutes for a rescue helicopter with no pain relief.
As they waited, her friend told her not to look at her legs - but she replied: “It’s okay, tell them to amputate both my legs.”
She added she looked down and I “knew in my head” there was no saving them.
“I nearly lost my life, losing my legs compared to that is nothing,” she said.
After having seven operations, she can now walk on crutches and hopes to go to university in September.
Despite her terrifying ordeal, she says she now intends to return to the country to help build a school.
She added if she can change “hundreds of lives” by nearly dying, then it will “all have been worth it”.
“Obviously what happened was terrible, but I can’t change it and I was so lucky to have people around me I did,” she said.
“It’s kind of a reality check, and makes you realise how lucky you are and how amazing life is.”
She added: “You just never imagine it could happen to someone like you.”
