(CNN) It sounds like a scene from a monster movie.

Children from a church group were playing in a creek in West Alexandria, Ohio, on Wednesday evening when one of their leaders spotted a 7-foot-long crocodile swimming nearby.

There were 16 kids -- all first- through sixth-graders -- playing in Bantas Fork Creek, and adults were in the water and on a small bridge to keep an eye on them, according to Rick Turnbull, who helps teach the children.

Another adult "saw something in the water, a shadowy object moving, and he yelled down to the person on that side of the bridge and shouted 'get the kids out of the water,' " Turnbull said.

Rich Denius was in the water with one of his sons and helped get the children to safety.

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