A Florida man had his hand bitten off by a massive alligator while he was fishing in a golf course pond.
The unidentified man was attacked by the monstrous gator on Sunday afternoon at a pond in Pennbrooke Fairways, a golf course and residential community in the Leesburg, about an hour outside of Orlando.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimated that the gator was approximately nine-feet long.
Ron Priest, a resident in the area, told FOX 35 that the bizarre incident took place in his backyard as his wife frantically called 911.
‘While the guy was on the ground, the gator got the guy in the hand, and the two rolled,’ Priest said.
He reportedly saw the fisherman reeling in a fish just before the gator pounced on him and snatched his hand off.
Priest’s wife was one of two worried neighbors who called the police to report the brutal attack.
Lake County Fire Rescue released those calls as Priest’s wife is heard saying: ‘There is a gator attacking a man in my backyard!’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the dispatcher responds.
She says: ‘Some people now have stopped in their gold carts!’
In the second call, a dispatcher answers the call and says: ‘Is this regarding the gator attack?’
‘Yes, he took his hand off,’ the person responds.
‘Oh no, okay,’ the dispatcher says.
The worried caller then says: ‘Hand is gone!’
Priest said that he thinks the gator was after the large fish that the man captured, but doesn’t know if he was ‘trying to unhook’ it in the chaotic moment.
He saw the gator attack the man and scurry back into the water just before emergency personnel arrived at the scene.
The victim was airlifted to a hospital in downtown Orlando and his condition is unclear.
Priest said that officials told him that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission ‘can’t dispose of a human part.’
He said that the man’s hand was sent to a medical facility in Orlando in case it can be re-attached to his body.
The reptile was shot after officials deemed it to be a ‘nuisance gator’- an alligator that measures longer than four-feet or ‘poses a threat to people, pets or property,’ according to the agency’s website.
In May, horrifying footage emerged of a man who has his right arm bitten off by an alligator while he went outside to go to the bathroom at a Florida bar.
Jordan Rivera, 23, was seen writhing in pain on the muddy banks of a pond outside of Banditos in Port Charlotte, just north of Fort Myers.
He was rushed to the hospital and said that he barely remembered what happened as he sat in the ICU.
‘I didn’t lose my life, I lost an arm, it’s not the end of the world,’ Rivera said.
‘As I was going over there something happened where I either tripped or the ground below me just went down. I ended up in the water. And that’s literally the last thing I remember.’
Rivera, from Englewood, was airlifted to Gulf Coast Hospital in Fort Myers, but his arm could not be saved, said Todd Dunn for Charlotte County Fire and EMS.
This article by Emma Richter was first published by The Daily Mail on 12 March 2024. Lead Image: An unidentified fisherman had his hand bit off by an alligator on Sunday afternoon as he fished at a pond in Pennbrooke Fairways, Leesburg, Florida.
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