A new report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission describes an intense fight on the water, as a large group kayaking in a canal came face to face with an alligator that went on the attack.
The incident happened back on March 3 as a group of 20 kayakers, including 64-year-old Christiane Salvador and her husband from Texas, paddled on a canal in Polk County.
Out of nowhere, Salvador told investigators, she felt something “bump against her paddle,” and her kayak tipped over.
A picture shows her paddle snapped in two.
Witnesses said they saw Salvador “struggling to keep her head above water,” then screaming, “There’s an alligator on my arm.”
According to the FWC report, Salvador’s husband pulled her on top of the overturned kayak, but one arm wouldn’t come out of the water because the alligator had “Christiane’s elbow in its mouth.”
When a third kayaker came to the rescue, the report states, the reptile “grabbed the front of his life vest and pulled him underwater.”
A picture shows the third kayaker’s vest with a tear in it.
To get away, the man “stuck [his] fingers deep into the gator’s eyes,” unbuckled his life vest and then watched the gator swim away with it in his mouth.
The severe injury that Salvador suffered on her elbow is so graphic, it looks like a moment out of a horror movie.
Reptile expert Kim Titterington weighed in on the attack.
“Right, and I’m sure for the people who were going through it were terrified,” she said.
As for what could have caused this to happen, the FWC report states there’s no evidence of anyone feeding the alligators, although the gator who attacked appeared to be acting in a protective or territorial manner.
Titterington suggested one possibility for the attack, noting it was mating season and nesting season. The gator was female and more than eight feet long.
“If you walk out back, and you’re sitting in your lawn chair, and all of a sudden a parade of 20 people just walk through your backyard, you are going to feel like you need to defend your space,” she said, “and when, again, a female has her babies, they are very defensive, high protection, because they have to protect their babies from other male gators as well.”
Alligator hunters did kill the gator responsible for the attack.
As for Salvador, doctors do not believe they’ll have to amputate her arm, but she’ll need several reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy to regain functionality of it.