9-year-old Florida boy wins a fight with an alligator

A nine-year-old boy from Saint Cloud, Florida is recovering in the hospital after having been attacked by a 9-foot, 400-pound alligator while swimming in East Lake Tohopekaliga. It was an experience that James Barney Jr. described as, unsurprisingly, the scariest moment of his life.

Barney was swimming in the lake when he felt something big brush up against him. Shortly after, he felt a strong tug which then turned into a sharp pain on his backside. Barney quickly realized that he had been bitten by a large alligator. What was the young boy’s reaction? He beat the crap out of the alligator and then pried its jaws open with his hands.

“First I thought someone was just playing with me and I didn’t know what happened. I reached down to go grab it and I felt its jaw, I felt its teeth,” Barney said. “I just immediately hit it and I let it go a little so I pry its jaw open”.

Upon freeing himself from the alligator’s jaws, Barney cried for help and was quickly pulled out by people nearby. One of his friends then called 911 to report the attack and call for medical assistance. Barney suffered three superficial bites as well as about 30 teeth and claw marks on his back, stomach, and legs.

Doctor Ross Morgan, a pediatric surgeon at the Arnold Palmer Hospital who treated Barney, said the alligator’s teeth marks could be clearly seen on the boy’s back when he was brought into the emergency room. “He’s got quite a few bites as if the alligator bit him several times,” Morgan said. “It looked like it was trying to get a hold on him.”

Read more about the story at The Guardian.

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