A Florida alligator had 15-year-old Summer Hinote in its jaws, but she was not ready to surrender. Instead, she fought back by punching the ’gator until friends could help her to safety.
The June 22 incident took place in Pond Creek, which is about 25 miles northeast of Destin.
“Me and my two friends decided to walk downstream and we were about a good mile downstream,” Summer said, according to WEAR-TV.
They were ready to head home when Summer realized there was something in the waist-deep water that was not friendly, according to WRBW-TV.
“I felt something brush up against me,” she said.
After she felt teeth on her thigh, “I just started punching it as hard as I could,” she said.
She said that the alligator let go “to get a better grip, I guess.”
“It had let go and then grabbed me again,” Summer told WEAR. “And it drug me underneath the water and then shook me around.”
Florida teen fights off alligator that dragged her underwater
15-year-old Summer Hinote suffered severe leg injuries but avoided amputation after being dragged underwater
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“I honestly thought I wasn’t gonna make it out,” she said, according to WRBW.
Have you ever seen an alligator in the wild?
She ended up keeping her leg, although she suffered severe cuts.
“It could have been a lot worse than it actually is,” she said, giving “credit to God” for her escape.
She noted that even in the midst of her crisis, she reached out to God.
After getting out of the water, “I hit the ground,” Summer said. “I laid down on the ground because I couldn’t run for real, and I just started praying.”
“My friend came up to me and I said, ‘Is my leg still there?” Summer said. “He said, ‘You’re fine, you’re fine. It’s not that bad, but we have to get up, he’s coming up from behind you.’”
“So he had to pick up me and my other friend, because my other friend was freaking out, and run up the bank, ’cause it’s higher than the rest,” Summer said.
“And the gator couldn’t get up. So he had to pick both of us up at the same time and run up there,” she said.
Shree, Summer’s mom, then came to get her to the hospital.
“I get a phone call because one of her friends made it to where they had service,” she said. “‘Summer’s been bitten by an alligator.’”
“That’s all I needed to hear,” she said. “I left just like I am right now, jumped in my truck, 911.”
Her mom hauled Summer into the bed of her pickup and took her to be treated.
Officials estimate the alligator was about 10 feet long.
“People were saying we were provoking the gator, which is not true at all,” Summer said, “Because it snuck up from behind me and none of us even knew that it was there.”
When asked what advice she would give others in her situation, said said, “Honestly, I would just start praying. God is the one that’s got you.”
According to WRBW, the alligator that attacked Summer remains on the loose.
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