Wildlife Safety - Alligator Attacks

Full disclosure: For over twenty years I have waded into alligator infested waters looking for golf balls – actually to describe this with more exact precision my golf ball retriever has gone into the water while I stood on the bank & that is dangerous enough. 

 

click on photo to enlarge

 

The above photo shows the alligator that attacked 10 year old Juliana Ossa earlier this month while the girl was sitting in one foot of water @ Mary Jane Lake in Florida, about 26 miles from Disney World, where a two year old boy had been killed by an alligator last June in a similar attack in shallow water.

 

When the alligator grabbed Juliana's left leg she somehow remembered the survival strategy she learned @ the Gatorland wildlife preserve, a.k.a. the "Alligator Capital of the World." 

 

Juliana's account: "I used what they taught me at Gatorland, so I put my two fingers up its nostrils & it couldn't breathe & had to breathe from its mouth & then let my leg out. The gator didn't do anything because he was too busy biting my leg & too busy with his claws in the sand. He didn't have any attack moves to take out my fingers."

 

The young girl miraculously survived the attack with relatively minor lacerations & puncture wounds & the alligator was euthanized.

 

It has been over two years since I went golf ball fishing with my retriever so I had abandoned the practice long before either of the above two notorious alligator attacks in Florida.

 

I present this safety tip as a example to people going on vacation or just family trips or outings where wildlife, not just alligators, that is strange to them live. When you go on vacation the object is to have fun – but part of the fun is knowing you are safe.