Blue fights off gator to save his fallen owner
At least three alligators, one a 12-footer, had been seen in a canal just 50 feet from where 85-year-old Ruth Gay lay injured.
©Associated Press...© St. Petersburg Times, published July 27, 2001
FORT MYERS -- Bitten numerous times, a scrappy 35-pound cattle dog repeatedly fended off an alligator after his 85-year-old owner fell outside her home and lay immobilized with broken bones until her family returned.
"Blue scared the gator off and kept it away from my mother-in-law. The dog got chewed up pretty bad," Albert Gibson said Thursday.
Ruth Gay was in fair condition at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers on Thursday after surgery on one shoulder and manipulation of the other to reset a dislocation.
Two-year-old Blue, an Australian blue heeler, was recuperating at home, licking his wounds.
Gay told her family she thought a gator had gotten Blue.
"She could hear Blue yelping and whining. She knew he was getting hurt," Gibson said. "Then it stopped."
Gay, who lives with her daughter and son-in-law in Fort Myers Shores, was home alone when she went outside to walk the dog just before 9 p.m. Tuesday. She slipped on the wet grass and fell, face down, breaking her nose and dislocating her shoulder.
She managed to flip on her back, then lay there immobilized, hollering, Gibson said. Blue lay at her side, up against her.
Suddenly, the dog growled and left. It was dark. Gay couldn't see what was happening but knew the dog was in a fight.
Earlier in the day, three gators, ranging in size from 6 to 12 feet, swam in the canal next to the house. The banks of canal were about 50 feet across the yard from where Gay was lying injured. There's no sea wall and after days of heavy rains, the water was high, to the top of the bank.
The Gibsons arrived home shortly after 10 p.m. When their car pulled up the dog raced to meet them, dripping wet.
"He was going wild, barking and jumping. He led me right to her," said Gibson, a retired construction superintendent.
"The first thing my mother-in-law said to me was: "I think I really messed up because Blue got killed.' "
Gibson managed to get his mother-in-law to her feet and he and his wife, Sylvia, took her to the hospital. The Gibsons got home about 4 a.m. Wednesday and a few hours later took Blue to Suburban Animal Hospital.
"There were a lot of little puncture wounds, bite wounds," said Dr. Terry Terlep, whose colleague treated the injured animal. A veterinarian stapled Blue's abdominal wound, cleaned up the others, put him on painkillers and antibiotics and sent him home.
"He's a little dog and fast like lightning," Terlep said. "He was trying to fend off this animal, trying to get it to go away. And he's so fast he could get out of the way.
"It's amazing what an animal will do in a time of need," Terlep said. "He's a pretty brave dog."