A Florida man 'thumbed' an alligator in the eye to rescue his dog from a 'death roll'
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On Tuesday, a Florida man wrestled with an alligator to protect his 8-month-old dog.
The man, Mike McCoy, told NBC that he watched as his dog was "in a death roll" with the reptile.
McCoy used his knowledge about alligators to save his dog and himself by thumbing it in the eye.
On Tuesday, May 11, Mike McCoy was walking his 8-month-old chocolate lab, Jake, through his neighborhood in Holiday, Florida, when he noticed something was amiss.
Jake had wandered a few feet away near a pond when McCoy noticed something spring out of the water with no warning. Before he knew it, the alligator had pulled his dog underneath the water.
"He was in a death roll with that thing," he told NBC News on May 14. Instead of panicking or running for help, McCoy did the first thing he could think of - he jumped into the water to try and grab Jake.
"I previously read up on my environment and gators. I got around, thumbed him in the eye, picked him out of the water so he couldn't get anywhere until he let the dog go. And in the interim he decided, I don't have him, I'll bite you," he told ABC Action News.
"Had I not remembered what I read about the alligators, I wouldn't have been able to respond as quickly to help Jake. It was only because I knew what I did that I felt confident to fight the gator off," he added to NBC.
While they're lucky, they didn't come out of the encounter totally unscathed. The attack was right near a school, and a nearby nurse witnessed the entire thing and was able to help bandage McCoy's wounds - the alligator bit him twice. Both Jake and McCoy needed stitches.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission told ABC Action News they estimated the alligator to be between 7 and 9 feet long, and are working with a trapper to capture the reptile.
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