After almost 10 hours lost at sea,
a group of scuba divers
washed up to a mysterious island.
Little did they know
that they landed on Rinca Island,
an Indonesian island
home to about 1,300 komodo dragons.
It didn't take long
for the hungry dragons
to surround them
and start going in for the kill.
The only thing the divers had
to defend themselves with
was the equipment on their backs.
Would that be enough to fight off
this army of giant lizards?
Komodo dragons
are the largest living lizards.
They can grow up to 3 m (10 ft) long
and weigh 70 kg (154 lb).
Komodo dragons have venom glands
in their jaws that cause
shock through hemorrhaging,
spasms and even paralysis in their prey.
Komodo dragons
can go without food for weeks,
then they have a feeding frenzy
and eat 80% of their weight.
Today we’ll tell you
the three most incredible stories
of people who came face-to-face
with these deadly predators
and refused to be part
of their giant feasts.
Given these dragons' massive size,
you’d think they’d be easy
to spot and escape from.
But in this story,
that wasn’t the case.
Loh Lee Aik was visiting
Komodo Island in May 2007.
That was an especially hazardous time
as the dragons' mating season
runs from May to August,
and the creatures are
particularly aggressive.
Loh stayed for a few days in the village,
where he was perfectly safe.
Then he decided to take
his vacay to the next level
and went searching
for dragons to photograph.
On his hike,
Loh found the perfect scene to shoot.
A group of Komodo dragons
was devouring a goat.
He was so mesmerized by the event
that he failed to see
another lizard approaching him.
The beast pounced on his leg.
Loh quickly realized that he had broken
the most important rule on Komodo Island,
always stay near a park ranger.
The tourist needed treatment
at a nearby hospital,
where doctors treated the bites
caused by the venomous animal.
If you think Loh’s experience was extreme,
wait till you hear
our number one story.
In May 2008,
Elena Neradairen and the group
she was diving with
got swept out to sea
by a dangerous riptide.
They were relieved to land on an island
until they found out
it was Komodo dragons' home turf.
Neradairen
got targeted for the first attack.
An enormous lizard kept trying to bite her.
The lizard had its eyes on her feet
and was determined
to make her its dinner.
Elena smacked
the deadly creature in the head
with a diving belt,
and her companions grabbed rocks
and threw them at the dragon's head.
Although they successfully scared it off,
that was just the beginning
of two days of the
ancient lizards traumatizing them.
Eating raw shellfish they found
on the beach
also helped them to survive.
Luckily
an Indonesian rescue crew
saw the group’s emergency
floats on the rocks,
found the divers,
and took them to a hospital
on a nearby island.
The group rehydrated
and recovered from the shock.
While it might not surprise you
to find deadly creatures in the wild,
what about
in your office?
Well,
you’ll have to see our next story.
It was a quiet morning for Mr. Maen,
a park ranger on Komodo National Park.
He went to his office as usual
and noticed he was the only
guide in the room.
While the others were in the cafeteria,
Maen prepared to do his work.
But he couldn’t shake off
the feeling that he wasn’t alone.
When he looked under his desk
and saw a hungry dragon at his feet.
Maen knew that slowly backing away
from the animal was the best
option to prevent an attack,
but unfortunately,
panic got the best of him.
He moved away too fast.
The motion-sensitive carnivore
dug its knife-sharp teeth
into the guide's leg.
He tried to open its mouth,
but it clamped its jaws shut.
Eventually,
he wrestled the dragon's mouth open,
but one arm got sliced open in the process.
As Maen shouted in pain,
most of his coworkers
could not hear him.
Only one came to investigate
and then got the others.
But a bunch of other Komodos,
which can smell blood
from 9.6 km (6 mi) away,
came too.
A few of Maen’s colleagues
helped him escape
from the hungry reptile
while others battled outside
to fend off the other aggressive lizards.
The men managed
to get their badly hurt
colleague through the dragons
to a local hospital.
But his injuries were so severe
that he had to be flown
to a hospital
on Bali Island for treatment.
These people survived
Komodo dragon attacks,
but that's just
one type of lethal lizard.
Small or massive,
some other lizards are dangerous
and poisonous too.
But which ones are they?
To find out,
keep watching
How to Survive.