This is the shocking moment a grandfather was bitten by a rescued crocodile that locals believed was tame.

The pensioner and other tourists visited the 'lucky' reptile that was saved from a flood last week and kept at a local theme park for devotees to make offerings.

Believing the croc was docile, the elderly man reached out to offer some food - only for the predator to viciously latch onto his arm and yank him into the water.

Footage shows terrified onlookers screaming as the beast thrashed the old man around in its jaws before letting go at the Cimory Dairyland centre.

Firefighters later arrived to take the grandfather to a hospital with a severely injured arm in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, on February 17 evening.

Onlooker Siti Aisyah said: 'The grandfather was bitten by a crocodile when he wanted to give him food. The residents immediately evacuated him and he was rushed to a hospital because his hand was badly injured.'

The local fire department chief Hasanuddin said the croc was caught in a flooded residential area on February 12 before being kept at the Cimory tourist attraction, which also includes mini-windmills, dairy animals and farming exhibitions.

Bosses had hoped that locals would visit in order to give donations to the croc. However, they have now let the animal be released by wildlife workers.

Hasanuddin said: 'When we arrived, residents were already crowded at the location and directed us to the victim, so the evacuation process was quick.

'We received information that this crocodile was previously seen near a landfill and had laid eggs on land. If there is one female crocodile, there is likely a male crocodile still lurking around.'

The Indonesian archipelago is home to 14 types of crocs - with a large population of extremely large and violent estuarine crocodiles that flourish in the region's climate.

Conservationists believe that crocodiles have been driven further inland closer to villages due to overfishing reducing the crocodiles' natural food supplies combined with habitat loss from the development of coastal areas into farms.

With uneducated locals in the developing country still using rivers for bathing and primitive fishing, the deadly combination of factors has led to rising numbers of crocodile attacks.