Posted on 09/07/2022 12:13:51 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A Florida man lost his arm in a grizzly alligator attack, only to spend the next three days wandering the swamp looking for help.
Eric Merda, 43, of Sarasota, was visiting the Lake Manatee Fish Camp in Myakka City on July 17 when he got lost in the woods. When he arrived back at the lake, he opted to swim across it as opposed to walking around.
“Not the smartest decision a Florida boy could make,” Merda admitted during an interview with 10 Tampa Bay that aired Monday.
Not long into his swim, he told reporters, “I look over and there’s a gator on my right-hand side.”
“She got my forearm so I grabbed her like this, she was trying to roll by she snapped her head so my arm with backwards like this completely.”
Merda said the gator dragged him underwater three times before doing the death roll and taking off with his right arm.
After swimming back to shore, Merda started walking and screaming for help.
“Bones poking out, muscles, if I try to move my fingers, you could see it twitching,” Merda said.
He struggled to put the physical pain into words.
After three days of wandering, Merda came upon a fence with a man on the other side.
“I said a gator got me arm, he said, ‘holy smokes man!’” Merda described the meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I’m surprised he didn’t bleed out.
I knew a lady who survived the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. She said the family had to retreat to the roof of their house because the water got so high. She said snakes were slithering out of the water onto the roof and her father had an ax and was chopping the snakes right and left.
“i used to live in Sarasota but even this Yankee knew better”
Back in the 50’s we swam with the gators. They feared people back then.
I grew up in the swamps near the Everglades until we moved to TN in ‘68. A really bad hurricane blew in one year. We sheltered at the shelter where my dad worked. He boarded up the windows before the storm. When we got home after the storm, the windows were still boarded up, but the door was blown off. The house had a couple of feet of water in it, a whole bunch of mad rattlesnakes, and one 6’ alligator. The young gators are the meanest. The old big ones are kind of lazy.
Fun times.
I lived down there in the 50’s and 60’s and it was the same. We swam with them, and they didn’t pay any attention to us. The only time you had to worry about them was when walking on the bank near the water. The baby gators would snap at anything, and they stayed near the shore. The momma gators made big nests on land but near the water and guarded them. Momma gators and babies were the worst. The snapping turtles weren’t much better.
sure dint in the 70’s
we had one lived in the bayou out front, came up killed a guy’s dog that got too close
made a believer out of me
related to Polk Salad Annie?
Whatever substance, he doesn’t look like the brightest crayon.
I wonder how he would not bleed out.
It took him three whole days to find somebody for help?
Why did he go out that far from civilization?
What was he doing?
So many bad choices. My sympathies for the pain he had to have suffered. No anesthetic, no nothing. I can’t even imagine it. A burn victim would know.
“we had one lived in the bayou out front, came up killed a guy’s dog that got too close”
Different animal. We “cleared” any area frequented by small dogs, ducks and children.
“I lived down there in the 50’s and 60’s and it was the same. “
We used to go night fishing in the lakes and ponds seldom visited by humans.
We would shine the flashlight in the shores around us and see dozens of pairs of red eyes reflected. Then we would jump in to cool off.
Trump supporters, man. First they destroy democracy. Then they deny Grizzly-Alligator love.
A gator has a brain about the size of a golf ball. Tourists feed them and they have started associating people with food or as food.
Our neighbors moved here from Alaska. The wife was fascinated with the Sand Hill cranes and started feeding them. "oh, so cute!"
We told her that was a big no-no! They can get mean.
gunfire in town was frowned upon...
“gunfire in town was frowned upon...”
Not when shooting gators and Yankees!
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