Crocodile can't keep Ben off the ball

wdnews@bepp.co.uk

A rugby fanatic is back playing with his team again having spent a year and a half recovering after being attacked by a 12ft crocodile.

Antony Blackmore, 28, was swimming in Lake Malawi last February when the creature grabbed him by his left ankle and dragged him into a "death roll".

The English teacher managed to scramble onto a nearby rock with his left foot bleeding heavily after he kicked the crocodile in the eye.

Mr Blackmore, from Calne in Wiltshire, suffered dozens of lacerations and was left with a golf ball-sized hole – now a vivid red scar – just above the ankle bone on the inside of his left foot.

He was airlifted to hospital in Kenya and had surgery and 60 stitches to save his foot – but doctors warned it could need amputation as it had no pulse.

But Mr Blackmore has now made a full recovery and is back on the rugby field with his teammates in Melksham's 1st XV.

He admitted that he had kept his ordeal a secret from the other players but was found out when a Channel 4 documentary team came to film him at the ground.

He said: "Since they found out there's been a lot of mickey-taking.

''I've had a lot of stick, but it's all been light-hearted stuff. They said 'you can fight off a crocodile but you can't get anywhere near the ball' that sort of thing.

''I absolutely love playing rugby but to be honest with you I didn't think I would ever play again.

''When I was in Nairobi it was touch and go as to whether I would keep my foot, so it is great to be back.

"My foot is at 95 per cent and it probably won't be much better than that ever. Sometimes when I walk on a hard surface it is quite painful."

Mr Blackmore, a teacher at John Bentley School in Calne, had been teaching up to 90 orphans in a remote village near Chintheche in the African state last February.

He often went for dips in Lake Malawi to cool off from temperatures of up to 35C – as locals assured him a crocodile had not been seen there for 17 years.

After the attack he was taken to Nairobi hospital on February 17.

Mr Blackmore said: ''One doctor came in and told me they may have to remove my foot over fears of septicaemia because they couldn't find a pulse. He walked out and I frantically started doing exercises to try and get the blood flowing in the hope it would help them find a pulse. I was terrified."

Mr Blackmore, who has two brothers, was flown back to Britain on February 27 and remained on crutches for three months. He now trains with his team twice a week as a number 8.

Mr Blackmore will appear in a Channel 4 documentary later this year.