Five-year-old Northland boy recounts 'frightening' eel attack

  • 18/01/2018
Five-year-old Northland boy recounts 'frightening' eel attack
Photo credit: Facebook

A five-year-old boy has recounted the moment an eel latched on to his leg in Northland.

Aron and his friend were "having a race" in a shallow stream on a Tangiteroria farm when he lost his dinosaur toy and went to retrieve it.

It was then the eel bit into his leg, leaving him screaming and his leg bleeding.

"It wasn't that sore," he told NZME. "It just frightened me."

Five-year-old Northland boy recounts 'frightening' eel attack
Photo credit: Supplied

When NZME asked how big the eel was he stretched his arms wide. His mother says judging by the bite mark, which Aron says felt like "sandpaper", it could have been a metre long.

Photos supplied to Newshub show the huge mark wrapping around his leg.

So why does he think he was bitten?

"It thought I was a meal," he explained to NZME.

Eel bites are uncommon at this time of year. The owners of the farm didn't even know they had eels on their property.

Newshub.