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A week up a tree to dodge crocs
An Australian man has told how he spent a week up a tree in a crocodile-infested swamp and lived to tell the tale.
David George, a Cape York stockman, was finally rescued by helicopter in the bush near Coen, in the remote far north of Queensland.
"Every night I was stalked by two crocs who would sit at the bottom of the tree staring up at me," Mr George told local paper The Courier-Mail.
"I'd yell out at them, 'I'm not falling out of this tree for you bastards'."
Dazed and bleeding after a tumble from his horse, Mr George found himself in the heart of a swamp - and then fell straight into a crocodile nest.
"I couldn't go back, it was too far and too dangerous, so I headed to the nearest high ground and stayed there, hoping someone would come and find me before the crocs did," he said.
He tried in vain to attract the attention of airborne search teams, including flashing sunlight off his tobacco tin, waving his shirt on a stick and spreading toilet paper in the tree branches.
Three days into his ordeal and his food supply of two meat sandwiches was gone.
"If I hadn't seen the crocs circling me, and if I hadn't fallen into the croc nest, I would have made a push for it. But I knew the safest thing was for me to sit tight and wait."
On the eighth day of his ordeal, the missing stockman was found after a search involving the Australian Army, police and Aboriginal trackers.
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