Crocodile Hunter: After my smile, crocodile?

Excessive alcohol in one’s system can, like the very best cocaine, result in a sense of fearlessness and a Friday night that is a damn sight more entertaining than it would have otherwise been. However, it can also prove dangerous if this lack of fear results in you, say, saying making an ass of yourself at a charity luncheon that was supposed to be alcohol free, or, in the case of the Aussie guy whose horrific drunken night out is currently making the rounds, having a crocodile chomp down on your face.

News sources did not mention if the man had been tilting a few at the travel agent’s office; his motivations are unclear for having chosen to spend part of his camping his holiday in Cow Bay, in Northern Australia, along a strip of beach later described by a local doctor as “crocodile highway”. This is not the kind of place where you’d want to be out backstroking in the moonlight since, as far as crocodiles are concerned, the night time is indeed the right time for munching on careless travelers.

The man in question jumped in the water for a late-night swim and when a wave rolled in he dove headfirst into it – not the right move. He thought at first that he had hit rocks, but with all the movement he quickly realized this was not so, and, in what you would have thought would have been one of those instantly-sobering moments of life, he realized just how wrong he was when the upset crocodile bit him in the face.

Had this story gone the predictable route and the man ended up an intestine-sandwich on the floor of the bay, this would be one for the good people at the Darwin Awards. As it played out, it is a story the authors of The Shark Book gladly add to their compendium of remarkable drunken feats. The drunken vacationer managed to escape to safe ground – remarkable in itself (source story suggests that the crocodile was small, but still) but what merits this guy the gold star in our book (or the “Purple Liver”) is that he was so drunk that he didn’t immediately realize the extent of his injuries, returned to his tent and fell asleep.

Yes, that’s right, he had pumped himself so full of the amber anesthetic that he didn’t see the pressing need to visit the hospital so that the giant bite that a crocodile took out of his face – a wound that later required 40 stitches to close – could be treated. (Full story here).