Posted on 06/03/2021 7:04:51 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
He found teeth all right!
A Florida man diving for shark teeth was bitten in the head by an alligator — and survived.
“I thought I got hit by a propeller, it hit me so fast,” Heim told WFTS. “It felt like a boat was going 50 mph.”
Dressed in a wetsuit, Heim had plunged into the river to look for megalodon fossils, something he does often.
The Tampa resident had just come up for air when he found himself between the jaws of a gator.
Fortunately, the reptile soon let go, allowing Heim to get his head back above the surface — where he locked eyes with the beast.
Heim was able to swim to shore, where he called for help. He was left with a fractured skull and had to get 34 staples.
“Your life is worth more than any shark tooth – or whatever you enjoy,” he said. “But I won’t stop diving, I’m just going to find safer ways to do it. Probably not in that river.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Good for him, I wish him well.
thats no FL native.
typical NE locust.
You hear a boat prop from far, far away when you’re underwater. They won’t sneak up on you.
🤣
A real Florida Man would have killed the gator by eating its face, and then while still high on bath salts, would have fought off a dozen cops naked.
Wear a helmet.
maybe an armed spotter on shore.
—”They won’t sneak up on you.”
YES!
Kind of a buzzing underwater sound.
Even I can hear them and I have not heard very much since 1969.
Those shark teeth must be worth more than their weight in gold.
Alligator thought bubble - crunchy but tasty. Tastes like chicken!
In the 1940s, growing up as a boy in the then undeveloped Naples area, a friend of mine did just that, acting as an armed guard on shore while his younger brother and several friends swam in the backwaters of Naples bay. My friend bagged several gators that way, netting cash for the benefit of his family. Only years later did his brother realize that in large part he was being used as bait.
Florida Miocene Carcaradon megalodon teeth are black while those of the Maryland Miocene (esp. Calvert Cliffs formations are gray. The best ones are a mild to deep amber and come from the Texas Gulfport phosphate mining pits on the Pamlico River (invitation only due to safety considerations). The biggest one someone found the day I was there was almost 7 inches long.
Talk about “tooth envy”!! And no alligators!!
Florida “natives” have been a minority in the state for several decades.
Heck, I personally know more Cuban Americans than Anglos who were born in the state and I have lived there three times.
The young kid on Digging Science youtube channel routinely dives Florida rivers for fossils and routinely talks about gator awareness when he swims.
It is good, clean fun to watch. I had no idea Florida was full of ice age mammal fossils.
https://www.youtube.com/c/DiggingScience/videos
Some of the rivers in FL are loaded with gators. I can’t even imagine diving into them. The gators are piled on top of each other. Seriously, this is so stupid.
LBJ while flying over Florida sees a bunch of white guys in a boat with a black guy water skiing!!!
LBJ has the helicopter land on the beach and his reporters take pictures.
LBJ starts talking about how this is so nice of them to share their boat water skiing and all...And his great society...
Someone yells out, “water skiing”?
HELL MAN, WE’RE TROLLING FOR ALLIGATORS!!!!
—”megalodon teeth “
I have a black one that I purchased at a rock show 40-50 years ago.
I gave my grandkids some nice-looking black plastic repoductions.
I don[’t recall seeing any amber ones?
I did have a nice bit of amber with insects, our daughter took it to school one day... now I have two small pieces of amber.
There are fellas here in Baldwin County, AL who snatch these darned things out of the bay bare handed. Not the big ones mind you, just the little three - four footers.
—”Those shark teeth must be worth more than their weight in gold.”
The nice ones can be!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/383992785244?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28
The mostly small ones can be found on the beach.
https://www.visitsarasota.com/article/venice-florida-shark-tooth-capital-world
And many large replica sharks’ teeth can be found on eBay.
I was once with friends doing that on a night outing in a Florida swamp in the early 1980s. My friends were biologists trying to get an idea of the numbers and health of the local gator population. They were astonished at the rapidity of the gator’s recovery from near extinction a decade earlier.
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