‘I was attacked by a 10ft crocodile on my gap year – this is how I survived’
telegraph.co.ukonline CrocBite database, which records fatal and non-fatal crocodile attacks on humans around the world, estimates that Nile crocodiles cause 1,000 fatalities across Africa every year, though with many going unreported the true number is likely greater.
Prior to Amelie, the most recent high-profile survivor on the Zambezi was Zanele Ndlovu, who lost her arm during a canoeing trip in 2018 (she married her British charity worker fiancé in a specially altered wedding dress five days later).Amelie had been waved off on her gap year last autumn by her mum, Veronika von Pfetten-Arnbach, 52, an upholsterer, and 15-year-old sister Helena.
After two years studying for her A-levels online, like so many teenagers whose young lives were put on hold by the pandemic, Amelie was craving freedom.With a childhood friend, she flew to Zambia – where her grandmother, Corinna Gräfin Almeida, 82, a German countess, has owned a river lodge close to the town of Livingstone for 20 years and which Amelie calls ‘a second home’.
She had a vague plan: spend a few weeks there, and maybe travel onwards to South America if Covid restrictions allowed.The teenagers set about making the most of their adventure, joining up with three local friends, the fivesome spending their days on safari and visiting waterfalls.It was during their second week that someone suggested white-water rafting.‘I wasn’t sure at first,’ says Amelie, as we sit talking in the sunny sitting room of the thatched cottage where she lives with her mum, sister and dog, Pretzel. ‘Growing up it was always like, “Don’t go near the river.” But with rafting, you’re assured it’s safe.
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