A 31-year-old triathlete narrowly escaped an alligator attack when it clamped down on his arm.
Jonathan Bruney was training for an Ironman triathlon at 10.35am on August 23 when the alligator bit his right bicep while he swam in the Savannah River near 324 East Shoreline Drive, South Carolina.
The beast pulled him underwater, but Bruney managed to escape after pushing his left thumb into the alligator’s eye to force it to let go.
He then shouted to bystanders nearby, who rushed to assist the swimmer, creating a makeshift tourniquet for his arm.
Emergency services arrived and treated a four to five-inch wound on Bruney’s arm, but he declined an ambulance ride.
Speaking to WRDW about the incident, he said: ‘Out of nowhere, it hit me. It was a pretty big impact to my right side… it felt as if my elbow had made a hard impact, maybe like diving on a gym basketball court.’
Bruney said he thought he had collided with a log at first, before a ‘cold pain’ shot up his arm.
The Charlotte resident continued: ‘I just knew the eyes were what you should target. I put my hand on the snout, reached up, and pushed my thumb into his eyeball, and he released.
‘I immediately thought, “I need to get this off of me,” because I didn’t want him to spin or death roll and do even more damage.
‘It could have been a lot worse. I guess I won the alligator lottery.’
He has been advised to stay out of the water for three to four weeks while he recovers, but still plans to return to the area for Ironman Augusta on September 27, which he was training for when the alligator struck.
On the day of the attack, he had travelled to the river with some athletes he works with to prepare for the event.
He said that he knew there could be alligators in the water, but did not knowingly put another in danger, and that there was no interaction with the creature beforehand.
‘It’s Georgia,’ he told WRDW. ‘It’s the South. It happens.’
Police scanned the water for the alligator, but it was not located.
Last month, law enforcement in Florida tracked down an alligator that had mauled a 31-year-old woman to death.
Brittany Clark, 31, was killed on June 28 after being attacked by the 12-foot predator while hiking with her boyfriend, Chance Allison, her friend and dogs in the Little Big Econ State Forest, just northeast of Orlando.
As Brittany stood in just three feet of water while the group stopped to take a dip, the reptile suddenly attacked.
The animal lunged and grabbed Brittany’s arm, dragging her into a death roll – a violent spinning manoeuvre alligators use to overpower prey.
After the alligator grabbed Brittany’s arm, her boyfriend desperately tried to pull it away and was dragged into the water himself during the struggle.
He managed to pull Brittany out of the water, and despite medics finding a faint pulse, Brittany died en route to the hospital, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.