A middle-aged man is nursing injuries in the thighs at a Bobasi hospital in Kisii after a strange animal attacked him on Saturday.
Mark Ogega, 27, is deaf but bravely fought to entangle his foot as the vicious animal struggled to pull him into River Mogonga where it had emerged from.
By Sunday noon, doctors at Lenmek Hospital in Ogembo were attending to him with a raft of anti-venoms.
They, however, said he was now out of danger and there was no cause for alarm.
"We have already administered first aid. We are carrying out further tests to assess if there is any poison," a doctor attending to him told the Star.
Locals were scouring through the banks of River Mogonga hunting for the animal with little success.
Through gestures, Mark described the animal that had mauled him as 'four-legged' and with big eyes.'
"It just climbed out of the river bank and tried to tie me with the tail as I fought it back. It only managed to bite me, however," he reminisced through sign language.
He could, however, not pick it out from any of the photos shown to him as he lay in his hospital bed.
Dorcas Ogega, Mark's mother, told journalists that her son was out looking after the family cow near the river bank when he came running and panting after the vicious attack.
He was bleeding and part of his trousers ripped off during the attack.
"Being a man, he did not want to show me where he was bitten and so I learnt it from his uncle. We quickly organized a bodaboda to rush him to the hospital," she told reporters.
"The fact that Mark was deaf appears to have hampered communication to help us ascertain the kind of animal that had attacked him," she said.
Mark's wife, Linet, appealed to the government to help them as they struggled to find money for her husband's treatment.
David Ogega, the father to Mark, said his son was responding well to treatment despite the excruciating pain from the injuries.
Elders from the area want Kenya Wildlife Service to help trace the animal and if possible have the family compensated.
They also said children going to schools nearby risk their lives daily walking through the river to access Bombaba and Don Bosco primary schools.
"This is the first incident but we are not ruling out the threat because the animal has not been taken out," stated John Ratemo.