A Florida man is in the hospital having his hand sewn back on after an alligator jumped out of a pond he was fishing in as he tried to unhook his catch.
The incident happened on Sunday in Lake County, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed it. The man was fishing in a pond on a golf course when the alligator bit off his hand. The man, who remains unnamed, was attacked by the huge gator on Sunday afternoon at a pond in Pennbrooke Fairways. This is a golf course and housing estate in Leesburg, about an hour's drive from Orlando.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission thinks that the gator was about nine feet long. "While the guy was on the ground, the gator got the guy in the hand, and the two rolled," Ron Priest told FOX 35 Orlando. Ron Priest's wife was one of two people who rang 911 for help. Lake County Fire Rescue gave the calls to FOX 35, and you can hear one of the callers saying, "Hand is gone!" Priest said the fisherman was pulling in a fish when the reptile opened its mouth and bit down on the man's hand.
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A fisherman trying to unhook his catch caught the attention of a gator instead (FOX 35 Orlando)"The gator was after [the] fish, and what we don't know is if the guy was trying to unhook the fish," he said. He also said the gator ran back into the water without the fish and fisherman.
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Help got to the scene a few minutes later, and a helicopter flew the man to a hospital in Orlando.
Priest told FOX 35: "It's my understanding that [FWC] can't dispose of a human part. It has to be sent to a medical facility, and so, in the odd chance that it could have been re-attached, they drove it to Orlando."
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had to shoot a troublesome alligator, which is standard procedure for gators that attack humans. The naughty gator was a big one, measuring nine feet, three inches long.
A man had his hand bitten off by a gator in Lake County in Florida while trying to catch a fish (FOX 35 Orlando)"The likelihood of a Florida resident being seriously injured during an unprovoked alligator incident in Florida is roughly only one in 3.1 million," FWC shared in a Human Alligator Incidents Fact Sheet. The most recent numbers from 2022 show 13 bites across the sunny state: nine major, two minor, and two fatal.
If you come across an alligator that you think might be dangerous to people, pets or property, you should call FWC's Nuisance Gator Hotline at 1866-FWC-GATOR (392-4286).
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