Blogs » Funny story from location
Funny story from location
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A while back I was in North Queensland, Australia doing safety and risk consulting for "The Thin Red Line". I was walking one of the planned locations along the Daintree River with a local guide. This guy was a real Crocodile Dundee, born and bred in the bush. We were talking about the problem of crocodiles in the river. the Daintree is loaded with them, and because we were not far from the mouth of the river, the crocs included 'Salties' or saltwater crocodiles. Salties have a bad reputation for being even more aggressive towards people. There were BIG crocs there - some were 12, 15 even 20 feet long and were known to drag full grown cows into the water at the cattle ranch where we were to film. So for keeping our cast and crew safe, this was yet another concern.
The thing about crocodiles is that while they can outrun a human, they are basically sprinters - they can't run for very long. the trick to staying safe when working in the area is to always stay 30 or 40 feet from the water. This gives you a head start on the croc if he comes out of the water for a meal (you) and that if you keep running in a zig zag, eventually you can climb a tree or the croc will get tired and abandon the chase. As the guide was explaining this to me, I realized that we were not 30 feet from the water, more like 10. I stopped and said, "But we're not 30 feet away and we can't outrun a croc." Totally deadpan, the guide smiled at me and said "Mate, I don't have to outrun the croc, I just have to outrun YOU." http://studentfilmmakers.network/file/smile/biggrin.gif" mce_src="http://studentfilmmakers.network/file/smile/biggrin.gif" alt="" phpfox="image-protect">
Chris Palmer
CMM Entertainment