Indian woman fights off crocodile with cooking bowl and spatula, escapes jaws of death

An Indian woman escaped a nasty end after fighting off a crocodile, using her aluminium cooking bowl and a spatula, that had sneaked up on her behind her house.

Sabitri Sasmal, a 37-year-old widow from Kendrapada district of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, was doing chores in a narrow canal behind her house, when the salt water crocodile pounced.

She managed to escape being dragged into the water by beating the giant reptile with a cooking bowl and poking its eyes with the spatula.

"The attack was so sudden that I had little time to react. An aluminium cooking bowl and cooking stick that I had brought from home to wash saved me from death," Samal told reporters.

The attack occurred outside the Bhitar Kanika National Park limits, a mangrove wetland housing thousands of reptiles and in the past two months two people have been killed and many more injured.

"It was a miraculous escape. The reptile pounced on me and dragged me to the water. I was about to be completely dragged into the water when I hit the croc on its forehead and eye... It slowly released me. I acted in the spur of moment as I had taken it for granted that the animal would devour me," she said.

More about crocodiles