Florida Alligator Attack: 8-Foot Gator Captured After It Viciously Bites Elderly Man Walking His Dog

KEY POINTS

The alligator lunged at him while he was walking his dog
He managed to poke the alligator in the eye using his index fingers
The received 60 stitches in his leg and five in his hand

An alligator was captured after it attacked a 61-year-old Florida man walking his dog by a canal.

The man, identified as 61-year-old Mark Johnson, was out walking his dog near his home in Port St. Lucie on Sunday morning when he encountered the gator. Johnson immediately unleashed his pet, a golden retriever named Rex, and yelled at it to go home.

Unfortunately, Johnson's foot got stuck in the mud and he couldn't escape the attack. The eight-foot gator immediately lunged at him and chomped down on his leg.

"The mouth was above my knee and I began to pull back, the best I can. I felt the pressure. He was clamping down onto my leg and I felt he was going to start to do his [death] roll," Johnson told CBS 12.

Johnson refused to give up and wrestled with the alligator near the canal while yelling "I’m not going to let you take me in the water."

He then managed to poke the gator in the eye using his index fingers.

"I went in that deep in his eye sockets with my fingers and he immediately opened up. Thank God and I pulled back. I got up," he recalled.

Johnson somehow managed to get out of the mud and get back home. He was rushed to the hospital where he received 60 stitches in the leg and five in his hand.

"I’m still in disbelief that the gator lunged at me like he did. I’m a native Floridian, been around these things my whole life, and this would have been the last thing I would ever expected," he told the Miami Herald, adding that the situation would have been lot worse had the gator done the death roll.

The gator was later captured by trappers.

"When your whole leg is in the jaws of a gator, you're not thinking size, you're thinking survival. I knew he was bigger than me. Well, the realization hit me today at how lucky I was, He was 8'6. It’s really hitting me now at how fortunate I am, you're talking seconds before a gator that size begins his death roll, tearing flesh, you know. That eight to 10 seconds will be burned in my mind the rest of my life," Johnson told CBS 12.