megimoo
03-31-2009, 12:41 AM
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- A Lake County man was attacked by an alligator inside his house Sunday night.
The gator crawled through an open door and into the Florida room of the house on Lake Eustis Drive. The man's wife and her friend used a broom handle to try and open the gator's mouth. The house sits right along a canal and it wasn't much distance at all for the little alligator to climb out of the canal, under the gate and right through the back door.
"I saw him right here. Right here! That's when I turned around and went right back in," Elaine Gaff told Eyewitness News.While it may be their Florida room, Elaine certainly didn't expect to find a alligator sitting in it Sunday night around 9:15."I actually panicked a little bit. And I said, 'There's a gator on the back porch!'" she said.
In the canal behind their home, the Gaffs see gators often enough, but Sunday night the gator must've smelled the food cooking and headed right inside."My girlfriend and I, we started brushing him away with a broom and we got him so far," Elaine said.Once Elaine got the alligator to a back door, Jim Gaff rushed over to try and help out with his bare hands.
"So I just reached down and grabbed it by the tail and was reaching up to grab it by the head and I wasn't fast enough," Jim said.The young, 3-foot gator swung his head around and took a nice, grown-up-sized bite into Jim's left arm."My girlfriend and I, we actually put the broom handle in the gator's mouth to pry it open," Elaine said."It didn't go deep. There's not a chunk missing. It just broke through the skin, bleeding and that was it," Jim said.
Jim might be playing it cool Monday, but they spent much of Sunday night in the emergency room cleaning the wound and loading up on antibiotics. Elaine, on the other hand, has learned her lesson.
http://www.wftv.com/news/19045210/detail.html#-
The gator crawled through an open door and into the Florida room of the house on Lake Eustis Drive. The man's wife and her friend used a broom handle to try and open the gator's mouth. The house sits right along a canal and it wasn't much distance at all for the little alligator to climb out of the canal, under the gate and right through the back door.
"I saw him right here. Right here! That's when I turned around and went right back in," Elaine Gaff told Eyewitness News.While it may be their Florida room, Elaine certainly didn't expect to find a alligator sitting in it Sunday night around 9:15."I actually panicked a little bit. And I said, 'There's a gator on the back porch!'" she said.
In the canal behind their home, the Gaffs see gators often enough, but Sunday night the gator must've smelled the food cooking and headed right inside."My girlfriend and I, we started brushing him away with a broom and we got him so far," Elaine said.Once Elaine got the alligator to a back door, Jim Gaff rushed over to try and help out with his bare hands.
"So I just reached down and grabbed it by the tail and was reaching up to grab it by the head and I wasn't fast enough," Jim said.The young, 3-foot gator swung his head around and took a nice, grown-up-sized bite into Jim's left arm."My girlfriend and I, we actually put the broom handle in the gator's mouth to pry it open," Elaine said."It didn't go deep. There's not a chunk missing. It just broke through the skin, bleeding and that was it," Jim said.
Jim might be playing it cool Monday, but they spent much of Sunday night in the emergency room cleaning the wound and loading up on antibiotics. Elaine, on the other hand, has learned her lesson.
http://www.wftv.com/news/19045210/detail.html#-