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Early in February, according to AAP Information Services, Roy Harrington took his 8-year-old daughter, Martina, and 5-year-old son, Paul, hunting for little snappers in a stream near his home.

Daily Planet is a collection of short news items -- one each weekday -- that evoke and illuminate the far corners of the world. To read previous items, visit the Daily Planet archive. Send all tips to DailyPlanet @salon.com.

What they found was one very large snapper. Harrington told the news service that his daughter thought the bubbles and waves she saw in the water moving toward her signified the presence of a turtle. "She said, 'There's one, there's one,'" he said.

The giant reptile leapt out of the murky water and attacked the girl. "I could see it pulling her down," said Harrington.

Luckily, little Paul came to the rescue. He grabbed the croc by the tail, and when the beast threw up its head, Harrington explained that it "gave Martina a chance to get her feet out of his mouth."

The children's father was unable to move because he was stuck in thick mud, but he was able to swing his ax at the crocodile, and he eventually killed it.

He then rushed his injured daughter to a nearby clinic, where doctors treated her wounds but did not stitch them in order to avoid infection.

Harrington described his daughter as looking "like someone got to her with a butcher knife," and now he wants "something to be done" about the crocodile population near his home. But crocodiles are still considered an endangered species in the Northern Territory.

You've just got to watch out for those tiny bubbles.
salon.com | Feb. 18, 2000

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