Florida paddleboarder rescues woman from alligator attack

Mike Heard used his paddle to strike gator that had latched on to swimmer in Silver River after hearing yells of ‘Gator!’

A Florida paddleboarder rescued a woman from an alligator attack in Marion county over the weekend.

On Saturday, an alligator bit the woman on the arm while she was swimming in the Silver River, according to local reports citing Marion county authorities.

Paddleboarder Mike Head told Fox35 that he was with his family when he heard two women yelling: “Gator!”

“It was almost like a missile, and it would just kind of … I could just see the back of it,” Head said, adding: “I was probably … 20, 30 feet away and I could see it going over to her. I was … like, this can’t be happening.”

He continued: “Is she dead? Do I dive in? And now I’m going to get ripped apart myself. There’s a lot of … things going through my head, trying to figure out what I was doing as I was paddling … towards her.”

Head said the alligator had its jaws locked on to the woman’s arm, prompting him to use his paddle to try to drive it away.

“I couldn’t swing because I knew I was gonna hit her in the head from my position, so I come around the other side, and I try to get a good position to stabilize myself so I’m not falling in. And then I swing because I can see it still, and I don’t know if I hit it or not. I just know that it was gone,” he said.

Another boater then came to Head’s assistance and helped bring the woman to shore, Fox 35 reported. Head used a rope as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from her arm.

“It’s a disturbing situation. My boys are right here but it’s just happening. I get the rope, pull it over, tie it around. She literally turns, she’s looking at me, and she’s like, ‘Tie it tight,’” he told the outlet.

Local authorities have since trapped a 9ft 8in alligator from the area, the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) said, WESH reports .

The Guardian has contacted the FWC and the Marion county sheriff’s office for additional comment.

Last week’s attack follows several other alligator attacks in Florida this summer, including one in Seminole county’s Little Big Econ state forest, where 31-year-old Brittany Clark was swimming with her boyfriend when an alligator attacked her. She later died from her injuries.

Alligators have long inhabited Florida’s wetlands, rivers and lakes and are found in all 67 counties, according to the FWC. As the state’s population grows and more people live and spend time near waterways, encounters between humans and alligators are becoming more common, it added.

The FWC advises the public never to feed alligators and to keep a safe distance if they encounter one. It also recommends swimming only in designated areas during daylight hours and keeping pets on leashes and away from the water.