A Florida man survived for three days in a swamp after an alligator ripped off his arm while he was attempting to swim in the lake – a move he admits was ‘not the smartest decision a Florida boy can make.’
Eric Merda, 43, from Sarasota, was visiting the Lake Manatee Fish Camp in Myakka City on July 17 when he got lost.
He said he came upon the water and decided to swim across.
‘I look over and there’s a gator on my right-hand side,’ he told 10 Tampa Bay.
‘She got my forearm so I grabbed her like this, she was trying to roll by.’
Merda said he was dragged underwater three times, but he fought back, and eventually, the alligator left – with his arm.
‘She snapped her head so my arm with backwards like this completely,’ he said.
Merda managed to swim to the shore and yell for help, in agony.
‘Bones poking out, muscles, if I try to move my fingers, you could see it twitching,’ he said.
Eric Merda, 43, is seen talking about the moment an alligator grabbed his arm as he swam in a lake
Merda is seen in a photo taken after the July 17 attack
Merda said he walked for three days until he found a fence and saw a man who he asked to help.
‘I said a gator got me arm, he said, ‘holy smokes man!’
The rescuer said he found Merda naked and bloodied in the swamp.
‘I didn’t know if he was dead or alive when I first walked upon him,’ the rescuer said.
‘And there’s nothing, no words can describe it, you know.’
He told Fox News 13 that Merda was evidently in agony.
‘He was in a lot of pain. He was like just help, help, help. He was talking to us and everything.
‘They cut the fence they helped him up, and he actually walked to the ambulance.’
Merda was immediately flown to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where doctors amputated the remnants of his arm.
An alligator trapper was dispatched to the scene, but it is not known if the animal which attacked Merda was found.
There have been at least six alligator attacks near Tampa so far this year, 10 Tampa Bay reported.
Fatal alligator attacks are rare in the United States, typically occurring about once a year. Yet there have been two so far in the Tampa area.
On July 15, an 80-year-old woman was killed after she fell into the canal near her home at the Boca Royale Golf and Country Club in Englewood, about 30 miles south of Sarasota.
A man believed to be looking for Frisbees in a lake was killed in late May in Largo, a city in the Tampa Bay area.
Merda is pictured before the attack, which took his right arm