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A 22-year-old man has survived a crocodile attack in the Solomon Islands, fighting off the writhing reptile as it bit and clawed him in a river.
John Tokasi, from Koli village on the island of Guadalcanal, is recovering from his wounds in Honiara's general hospital after Monday's attack by the three-metre crocodile.
He received a deep claw wound to the chest and bite wounds to his right arm and hand.
Tokasi was swimming near the mouth of the Metapona River after a fishing expedition with friends when he felt something pulling on his hand. Instantly he was engaged in a dangerous tussle with the crocodile in waist-deep water.
A tired Tokasi was doing little talking but his cousin John Palmer told AAP he managed to avoid being whipped by the crocodile's tail as it twice latched onto his arm.
After a violent struggle, Tokasi took advantage when the croc appeared to stop for a rest, he said.
"He put his foot on his nose and pushed down and the crocodile opened its mouth and let go."
But the reptile attacked again, sinking a claw into Tokasi's chest before he broke away and splashed to shore.
The hospital's surgical registrar Dr Larry Lagatiana said Tokasi was lucky his sternum stopped the crocodile's claw from ripping into crucial blood vessels.
"Otherwise he could have died, he was lucky."
Although he will be scarred, Tokasi should make a good recovery and be out of hospital in a week, Lagatiana said.
The number of crocodile attacks in the Solomons had gone up since thousands of weapons were collected and destroyed in the island nation following years of ethnic unrest, he said.
"The locals used to have guns so they would shoot the crocodiles."
Now the villagers don't have guns, the crocodiles are increasing in numbers and occasionally attacking people, Lagatiana said.
However he added: "That doesn't mean it's a case for having guns back."
Lagatiana said he did not know of any recent deaths of Solomon Islanders from crocodile attacks but the hospital took in five or six people last year with crocodile injuries.
