Video Shows Hippo Charging Boat Full of Tourists in Botswana

A tourist's video from northern Botswana captured the moment a boat carrying a family had to outrun a charging hippo.

Oznur Bell, who recorded the footage, was on the boat Sunday with her three children and a close friend as they traveled between camps during their stay in Botswana, she told NBC News.

"It was one of the most terrifying moments I've ever experienced," Oznur said. "Once he started charging after us, the adrenaline was unbelievable."

One of the trip's guides, who was operating the vessel, spotted the hippo and slowed the boat in an attempt not to disturb it, Oznur said. The boat had just come upon an elephant, and she had her phone out when the hippo appeared.

"I happened to have my phone in my hand because I was filming it," she said of the elephant. "By pure luck, I never put my phone away, which is the only reason I was able to capture what happened next on camera."

The guide quickly realized the hippo had been provoked despite his efforts, she said. Oznur recalled the guide saying, "Hold on — we need to speed up now before he decides to come after us."

"The moment we accelerated, we looked back and realized the hippo was chasing us," she said.

Her video, posted to her Instagram account, shows the animal extending its head and upper body out of the water in a motion that resembles a human breaststroke. The boat threw up a wake as it sped off, and its operator smiled nervously.

"You can actually see the smiles on the guides' faces, not because it was funny, but because it was a smile of pure relief," Oznur said. "For a few moments, every single person in the boat was genuinely worried."

She said the guides told the group afterward that although hippos are known to be extremely territorial, they rarely witness a chase like that. "They said we had experienced a truly extraordinary encounter," she said.

Hippos, which are herbivores, are the third-largest land animal after elephants and white rhinos and can weigh as much as 8,000 pounds. Despite their mass, they can accelerate in water and on land.

"They have adaptations to their semi-aquatic environments allowing them to move swiftly on both water and land," the African Wildlife Foundation states, citing four webbed toes that distribute weight on land and short legs that provide powerful propulsion in water.

The number of fatal encounters between hippos and humans is not known but is estimated at a minimum of 500 deaths a year. One of the animals' biggest threats is human encroachment, according to the World Wildlife Fund, which lists the hippo as "vulnerable" but not endangered.

"I feel incredibly lucky that I happened to be filming," Oznur said, "because otherwise this extraordinary encounter would have lived only in our memories."