“I actually thought I was going to die – they were going to kill me,” British native Graham George Spencer told the Straits Times of the otterly frightening encounter, which occurred Nov. 30 while he was strolling to the Singapore Botanic Gardens with a friend.

Spencer, who is in his 60s, was reportedly approaching the visitors center when he spotted around 20 otters crossing a dimly-lit path in front of him. He claimed it was the first time he had seen the mustelids in the area despite taking his morning walks there for five months. The animal encounter went south after a jogger ran through the pack, causing the fish-eaters to go “crazy like dogs” and try to bite the passerby, the shocked senior told Singapore’s Today online newspaper.

Fortunately, the runner escaped, but the water weasels set their sights on Spencer, who believed they’d mistook him for the runner.

The ornery otters reportedly hit him in the ankles, pushed him down and leaped on top of Spencer, then proceeded to bite the prone man around his legs, shoes and buttocks, with one nipping his finger, according to the media reports.

“I was bitten 26 times in 10 seconds,” an aghast Spencer recalled to Today.