A Florida woman has revealed how she punched a five-foot-long alligator in the eye after it attacked her beloved four-month-old puppy.
Danie Wright was walking four-month-old Dax behind her home in Land O’ Lakes last week when the terrifying encounter unfolded.
Wright said the alligator was lurking beneath water moss in a creek and lunged at them, grabbing Dax in its jaws.
‘I heard a squeal, and I got pulled,’ Wright told WTSP.
‘The alligator had him by his collar and dragged him, and I wasn’t gonna let go.’
Wright said she desperately wrestled her puppy from the reptile’s jaws, fighting back with her fists.
‘I just punched him, punched and punched,’ she told the station. ‘I punched him in the eye enough that he kind of let go … but his teeth dragged down my arm.’
Wright managed to pull Dax free but was bitten by the alligator during the struggle.
She is now recovering from her bite wounds.
Florida woman Danie Wright was bitten while fighting a five-foot alligator off her puppy Dax
Four-month-old Dax was snatched by the collar and dragged toward a creek before Wright punched the alligator in the eye
Four-month-old puppy Dax escaped the terrifying ordeal unscathed thanks to Wright’s actions
Wildlife officers later trapped the alligator and removed it from the area.
‘Just be careful with your dogs, you know these alligators are no joke,’ Wright warned.
‘Fifteen feet — he came out to get him, and I didn’t see him.’
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), only two prior incidents of an alligator biting a human had been recorded this year, one of them fatal.
Overall, Florida records around eight unprovoked gator attacks on humans each year, the FWC said. But attacks on dogs are much more common.
Just days before Wright and Dax’s ordeal, another Florida resident had a close encounter.
Optometrist Amber Perren, 27, was wading in the St. Lucie River on July 23 when an eight-foot alligator latched onto her arm.
‘I saw the gator’s head, eye to eye,’ she told WPTV. ‘My mind was to get away, get away. I was just punching his head, and I was trying to run.’
Her husband, Kelby, leapt into the water and fought the reptile until he managed to pull her free. ‘I keep saying he was my hero and he saved me,’ she said.
The attack took place behind Wright’s home in Land O’ Lakes. She was walking her puppy along a stagnant creek where it was lurking under water moss
Perren was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries: both bones in her forearm were broken, her radial artery was severed, and she required five surgeries and multiple skin grafts.
‘My hand was just hanging,’ she said.
Remarkably, she has already returned to work at her new eye clinic, though she is still regaining movement in her hand and may need further surgery, she said.
Despite the ordeal, Perren insists she won’t stay away from Florida waters.
‘I’ll go back,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to go back to that same beach, but I’ll go back.’
The alligator that mauled Perren was captured. She now plans to display its skull in her office.
