Snorkeler pries open the jaws of a crocodile "to get my head out"

A 51-year-old man was snorkeling with his wife and friends off the coast of North Queensland, Australia on Saturday when he suddenly felt something "got its jaws around my head." He thought it was a shark, until he reached up and realized his head was inside the mouth of a saltwater crocodile. "I was able to lever its jaws open just far enough to get my head out," Marcus McGowan later recalled via a hospital's "patient media statement."

But the crocodile wasn't giving up and went at him again, this time biting McGowan's hand. Fortunately, the snorkeler, although wounded with lacerations and a bite, managed to flee the creature and get into a boat, which took 45 minutes to transport him to an island. From there he was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital.

From YahooFinance:

The crocodile, he said, tried to go after him again. He said he couldn't tell just how large the crocodile was because the incident happened so fast, but he thinks it was likely a juvenile between 6 and 10 feet long.

"I managed to push it away with my right hand, which was then bitten by the croc," he said.

At that point, he was able to swim back to the boat, which immediately took him to Haggerstone Island, about 45 minutes away. During that trip, one of his friends, a firefighter, provided him with a bandage and gave him antibiotic shots to prevent infection from the bite.

Once on the island, he was taken by helicopter to the hospital.

"I live on the Gold Coast and am a keen surfer and diver, and understand that when you enter the marine environment, you are entering territory that belongs to potentially dangerous animals, such as sharks and crocodiles," he said. "I was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time."