Forget hyenas, forget leopards, forget even lions – ask any expert and they’ll tell you that Africa’s most dangerous mammal is the hippo.

Whilst many mistakenly perceive them as adorable and harmless, the hippo is a fiercely territorial and frequently aggressive animal, possessing the most powerful bite in the animal kingdom and the capability to outswim humans in water and outpace them on land.

This was something Zambezi River tour guide Paul Templer discovered the hard way when he was attacked by a hippo near the iconic Victoria Falls whilst leading a group of tourists.

Although only 27-years-old, Templer was an experienced guide, and even recognised the enormous bull hippo as it approached him, though that didn’t prevent the creature launching a savage attack.

“The hippo who tried to kill me wasn’t a stranger,” Paul told the Guardian. “I’d learned to avoid him. Hippos are territorial and I knew where he was most likely to be at any given time.”, reports the Mirror.

Paul says the hippo charged without warning and with extraordinary speed.

“The solid whack I felt behind me took me by surprise,” he recalled.

Another of the guides, Evans, was thrown from his kayak as the two-tonne animal surged out of the water. Paul immediately shouted for the others to head for nearby rocks before turning back to help.

The moment he reached out to try and grab Evans’ hand, he describes everything going completely black.

“There was no transition at all,” Paul said. “It was as if I had suddenly gone blind and deaf.”

He rapidly understood what had happened.

Whilst his legs remained submerged, his upper body felt constricted within something tight and foul-smelling.

“There was a terrible, sulphurous smell, like rotten eggs,” he said. “I managed to free one hand and felt around, my palm passed through the wiry bristles of the hippo’s snout.”

Astonishingly, Paul found himself waist-deep inside the creature’s jaws.

During a fleeting moment when the hippo opened its mouth, he managed to break free, only for the animal to attack again and pull him back beneath the surface.

“I’d never heard of a hippo attacking repeatedly like this,” he said. “But he clearly wanted me dead.”

The hippo savaged him for several seconds, using its enormous bite to penetrate his chest. Medical staff would subsequently count nearly 40 bite wounds.

“It felt as if the bull was making full use of the whole lot,” Paul said. “Throwing me into the air and catching me again, shaking me like a dog with a doll.”

At one stage, everything went silent beneath the water.

“I remember looking up through 10 feet of water at the green and yellow light playing on the surface,” he said. “Blood rose from my body in clouds, and a sense of resignation overwhelmed me.”

Eventually, the hippo surged back to the surface and released him, whilst another guide managed to reach him and pull him to safety.

Although thankfully alive, Paul had sustained life-threatening injuries. His left arm had been crushed and his chest was ripped open so severely that a lung was visible.

Remarkably, his resourceful colleagues managed to seal his chest wounds with food wrappers to prevent his lungs from collapsing, a move that doctors later said probably saved his life.

By pure coincidence, a medical team was in the vicinity and assisted in keeping him alive long enough to reach hospital.

Surgeons cautioned Paul that they might have to amputate both arms and part of a leg. Ultimately, he lost his left arm but survived.

Unfortunately, fellow guide Evans wasn’t as fortunate. His body was discovered two days later downstream.