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[cab67]

18. I'm not sure I buy this.

Background - I work on crocodile anatomy for a living.

It is extremely unlikely that anyone, at any age, could have gouged out the eyes of a crocodile with his or her fingers. Crocodiles have both outer and inner eyelids (nictating membranes), and their outer eyelids have small bones (palpebral bones). An animal's first instinct when its eyes are attacked is to shut its lids. Moreover, a crocodile's optic nerve is fairly robust.

If the events happened as described by the girl, it's a lot more likely that the girl jammed her fingers into the crocodiles eyes, and that the crocodile was reacting to the surprise and pain of having its eyes poked at. The eyes themselves were most likely still intact.

I'd want more information on a couple of things:

1. The wounds on the younger girl. Are they consistent with a crocodile bite? People in that part of Africa are familiar with crocodiles and their attacks, but I'd still want to know whether they're bites, and whether they indicate the size of the crocodile.

Speaking of which, 2. I'd want to know more about the size of this crocodile. If it was more than a couple of meters in length, it would have shaken the 11-year-old off its head relatively easily. This, of course, could have prompted the animal to unintentionally release the other girl, but both girls would have needed to get out of there in a real hurry. Alternatively, if it was a small crocodile that was attacking the younger girl, it's more credible that an 11-year-old could have gotten it to back off. (Of course, a smaller crocodile would be less able to drag anything as big as a child into the water.)

Another point - if the little girl was bitten by a crocodile, she's going to need serious medical treatment. Crocodile jaws are incredibly powerful. Even if they don't break the skin, the force of their teeth hitting flesh causes tissue damage that inevitably leads to localized necrosis, and this can bring on some serious staph infections. Plus, crocodiles don't brush their teeth, and if the teeth did break the skin, those wounds are likely to get infected. (I say this from direct personal experience.)