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Posted on 03/30/2009 8:30:54 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- A Lake County man was attacked by an alligator inside his house Sunday night. The gator crawled through an open door and into the Florida room of the house on Lake Eustis Drive.
The man's wife and her friend used a broom handle to try and open the gator's mouth.
The house sits right along a canal and it wasn't much distance at all for the little alligator to climb out of the canal, under the gate and right through the back door.
"I saw him right here. Right here! That's when I turned around and went right back in," Elaine Gaff told Eyewitness News.
While it may be their Florida room, Elaine certainly didn't expect to find a alligator sitting in it Sunday night around 9:15.
"I actually panicked a little bit. And I said, 'There's a gator on the back porch!'" she said.
In the canal behind their home, the Gaffs see gators often enough, but Sunday night the gator must've smelled the food cooking and headed right inside.
"My girlfriend and I, we started brushing him away with a broom and we got him so far," Elaine said.
Once Elaine got the alligator to a back door, Jim Gaff rushed over to try and help out with his bare hands.
"So I just reached down and grabbed it by the tail and was reaching up to grab it by the head and I wasn't fast enough," Jim said.
The young, 3-foot gator swung his head around and took a nice, grown-up-sized bite into Jim's left arm.
"My girlfriend and I, we actually put the broom handle in the gator's mouth to pry it open," Elaine said.
"It didn't go deep. There's not a chunk missing. It just broke through the skin, bleeding and that was it," Jim said.
Jim might be playing it cool Monday, but they spent much of Sunday night in the emergency room cleaning the wound and loading up on antibiotics. Elaine, on the other hand, has learned her lesson.
"All the time. All the time. There's no way I'm keeping these doors open," Elaine said.
Florida Fish and Wildlife said that's probably a good rule, especially this time of year when gators are out.
The agency issued the Gaffs a warning. You're always supposed to call them in to remove a gator in a situation like this.
for real?
Lucky. Usually the spin once they clamp on. That generally rips the limb off your body.
i woulda issued him a warning right back
Maybe before too long, we can remove gators at will and then the agency can be removed because it is no longer needed. I don't like that tone....
“There’s not a chunk missing. It just broke through the skin, bleeding and that was it,”
“It’s just a flesh wound”
(Monty Python’s Black Knight)
Like they are suposed to wait to get a wild animal off the arm. That’s just inane.
Kill it. Then call that jerk and tell him to come remove the stupid thing.
Shudda shot the gator, skinned him, dressed him out and fried him up.
To hell with calling the gubmint. They’re not here to help.
Visions of giving Fish and Wildlife a warning with the broom but that would probably end with jail.
There’s a reason our cat is now an indoor cat. She kept bringing trophies into the living room. The last one was a live snake that had wrapped itself around her several times. When I got it off her, I beat it to a pulp with an old cast iron skillet.
Hell no, kill the thing and fire up the BBQ, alligator is actually quite delicious.
They probably called 911, and the cop that always follows the paramedics calls Fish and Wildlife when he hears the victim’s story....
Oh. Well, then call the jerk after that and tell him to stay off your dam property!
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Skin him, Saute’ him, and shut up...
Heck Florida has the Castle Doctrine, stand bye to cook up some gator...someone mentioned deep fried, but roasted/BBQ is great as well.
And they’ve dressed for dinner.
Land Shark!
...and to think that I mind when the deer eat our shrubs. You people in Florida have fing dinosaurs walking around. Tough neighborhood!
“Usually the spin once they clamp on.”
They spin when they are in the water not when they are on land; they can’t swim in the air.
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