4/2/2023 0 Comments Docsink and pricing![]() If a pole is nearby, someone can beat on the gator and give it another target. If people are nearby, they should call 911 for help, Andrews said. “Scream, make as much noise, not only fight back but make yourself as big and as much a pain in the rear end as you possibly can.” It is amazing how muscular and powerful they are,” Andrews recalled. And I wondered, ‘Oh my gosh, did I fracture my shin bone?’ I had a lump the size of a tennis ball. “It actually hit me broad with the side of its head across my shins … and I blacked out. She was part of a capture team once that had a gator taped up and its mouth secured when it unexpectedly whipped its head around. Andrews knows first-hand how dangerous that can be. Gators can also whip around with their skull and use it like a battering ram. You can be injured if you’re hit by the tail. And the alligator has more in its arsenal that a fearsome set of teeth. ![]() They’re better in the water.”īut don’t assume all is safe if you’re on land. In a water attack, the danger is more from drowning than the bite, Andrews said. Those points are sensitive on alligators just like they are on us,” she said. “We recommend trying to poke them in the eye, hitting them in the top part of the skull or the side of the jaw. If the gator is trying to drag you under the water, “you have to assume at this point you’re fighting for your life, and you’ve got to give it all you’ve got,” Andrews said. Heaven forbid you’re that person like Heim who is being attacked by an alligator. Would you know how to defend yourself if an alligator started coming for you in the water? Harry Collins/Adobe Stock Nonetheless, people continue to be fascinated by such possible encounters. “Unless they’re confronted, they’re going to stay on their own turf.” … We’re not a good animal to pick a fight with.” If you think about it, we’re quite dangerous to attack. It turns out gators, in natural conditions, simply aren’t that interested in people, according to Kimberly Andrews, a gator and snake expert with a doctorate in ecology from University of Georgia’s Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant and who manages its Coastal Ecology Lab. There were 442 unprovoked bite incidents in Florida from 1948 to 2021, and 26 of these bites resulted in people dying, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission. Yet gator attacks aren’t that frequent and deaths even more infrequent ( deadly attacks from dogs and horses and other mammals are more common). Some of these gators inhabit places where lots of people live and many others vacation, such as lakes and rivers all across Florida and coastal South Carolina. Georgia has about a quarter of a million. Florida sports roughly 1.25 million alligators (and more than 1,000 American crocodiles). Louisiana has an estimated 2 million wild gators in a state of about 4.65 million people. Heim was in a situation many people probably fear but very few actually experience: an attack by an alligator.Īn estimated 5 million wild American alligators are spread out across 10 states in Southeast and beyond, including parts of North Carolina and even the extreme southeastern tip of Oklahoma. He was in the water, alone and face-to-face with an alligator.Īlligators sun themselves in Florida City, Miami-Dade County. But mostly what I felt was what I thought was a huge boat just slamming into me and just pulling me down.” I just felt like a blunt force object – like someone … swinging a baseball bat and just whacking my head. ![]() “I didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything. He was under no more than one minute when he felt something. He put on his wetsuit, mask, fins and snorkel and entered the water from the shore, not far from a restaurant along the riverbank. He had been there numerous times and was comfortable with plunging into its murky waters to find the teeth of extinct megalodons in the riverbed. So on a hot, sunny Sunday in Sarasota County, Florida, the 25-year-old Heim proceeded to the Myakka River on a spot about 45 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. An unsuccessful attempt the day before to find any of them only fueled his obsession to find some on his next outing, he told CNN Travel recently. Jeffrey Heim woke up on May 30, 2021, with one thing on his mind: Sharks. ![]()
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