An Alligator Lost a Fight to a 10-year-old Florida Girl
Source – A 10-year-old girl managed to free herself from the jaws of a nearly 9-foot-long alligator over the weekend by prying open its mouth with her bare hands, Florida wildlife officials said.
The child was sitting in a designated swim area in Orlando’s Lake Mary Jane on Saturday when the alligator latched onto her leg, according to an incident report released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The water where she sat was about 2 feet deep. …
The brave girl fought back, first by poking the alligator in its nose and then by pulling down on its lower jaw, which freed her leg, ABC News reported. …
“She had puncture wounds but I don’t think they’re life-threatening,” Chad Weber, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman, told the Orlando Sentinel.
There are a lot of things in this story that would be firsts for me. Beginning and ending with the fact I’ve never won a fight against a leathery, terrifying, prehistoric death torpedo. According to my reference source, “The Little Kids’ First Big Book of Dinosaurs,” these things are virtually unchanged since they evolved their way to the top of the food chain about 100 million years ago. And you know why? Because they haven’t had to. Because they are perfectly engineered hunting machines that can sneak up on their prey undetected and clamp down on them with a set of jaws that could bite through a parking meter, that’s why. And not by getting their asses handed to them by some Florida swamp rat who isn’t old enough cut her own steak. But I guess no gator ever ran into this little hellion. I’ll try to keep her in mind next time I’m killing a spider with the battery powered handheld fly zapper I bought at The Dollar Store because getting bug squishings on the wall makes me want to puke.
My only advice to this kid – besides the obvious thing about getting the hell out of Florida – is that she keep this to herself. As in, forever. It might feel good to tell everyone how you won a fight with an alligator. But if you ever want to have a normal relationship with a man, he’s not going to want to have to compete with your story about the time you beat the snot out of a 9-foot reptilian murder log when you were 10. What little masculinity I had is ruined enough and I’m a grown man sitting a thousand miles away. You won’t be doing your prom date any favors if you break this story out any time in the next 7 years. You’re welcome. And seriously, move.