Unlike so many others in her state’s long and storied history of violent encounters with the vicious reptiles, 15 year-old Florida Panhandle resident Summer Hinote wasn’t asking for a fight with an alligator but she got one while wading in the waters of Pond Creek in Okaloosa County last month.
“I didn’t know what it was at first, so I just turned my body around and started punching it in the head. It let go and then it grabbed again and then dragged me under the water and shook me around,” Hinote told CBS News, adding a friend rushed to her aid, pulling her and another girl out of the water. Hinote said she asked the friend if her leg was still attached. “He said ‘you’re fine, you’re fine, it’s not that bad but you have to get up. He’s coming up from behind you,” she said. They then called Hintote’s parents who arrived and took her to meet EMTs who took her to a local hospital.
Hinote’s since made a full recovery from the June 22 attack. Officials estimate the alligator to have been at least 10 feet long based on the size of the bite marks on her leg. Lucky friggin kid.