"That’s just the nature of predators."
July 25, 2018 10:47 AM   Subscribe

Marine Biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez Was Bitten and Dragged by a Crocodile...and Lived to Tell Her Story (SLJezebel). While diving in Cuba looking for Hammerhead Sharks for Discovery Channel's Shark Week, marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez was bitten and dragged by a 10 foot American Crocodile. Here she describes in her own words how it happened, why she believes she survived, and how she doesn't blame the animal.
posted by primalux (9 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
this is amazing, i can only hope to be as level-headed in a crisis. i'm about to go to sleep so this is a very inspiring thing to cap the night with.
posted by cendawanita at 11:01 AM on July 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


She stayed very calm.

So my plan to defecate explosively while screaming shrilly doesn't have merit? Merde. That's really my go to for wild animal encounters.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:38 AM on July 25, 2018 [1 favorite]


The place my mind always goes when I read about stories like this that end relatively well is that, for the rest of her life, she will always have something fascinating to talk about at parties.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:38 AM on July 25, 2018 [7 favorites]


It sounds like she already had lots of fascinating things to talk about at parties, like the time she was bitten by a scorpion and had her arm paralyzed for three weeks.
posted by jeather at 11:45 AM on July 25, 2018 [5 favorites]


"They put bleach into my wounds through a high pressure hose. That was more painful than the bite."

...augh??
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:51 AM on July 25, 2018 [8 favorites]


Melissa is one of the coolest people I know (she went to undergrad at the college where I work) and this surprises me not at all. She's been obsessed with sharks (the irony!) since her childhood, studied them in college, did tagging missions all over the world, and is the founder of the Fins United Initiative, an outgrowth of a shark education effort she started years ago. (She even wrote a shark book for little kids, though I can't find it on the updated website.)

If there's one consistent theme in her research and advocacy, it's that sharks are misunderstood and far from the evil predators portrayed in the movies. So her having sympathy for the creature that nearly severed her leg is so totally Melissa. She's awesome; check out her website.
posted by martin q blank at 12:09 PM on July 25, 2018 [25 favorites]


(oops- found her books, at the bottom of this page. and lots of stuff for your little shark fan at this link.)
posted by martin q blank at 12:29 PM on July 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


If you liked this you might enjoy Val Plumwood's "Being Prey," about surviving a crocodile encounter while canoeing solo in Kakadu National Park. (Come for the survival narrative, stay for the larger reflections on narrative and human exceptionalism.)
posted by felix grundy at 5:14 PM on July 25, 2018 [4 favorites]


It sound like she's a really awesome person, at parties and elsewhere.
posted by Harald74 at 5:53 AM on July 26, 2018


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