An alligator traps a US guy underwater; he escapes with a broken arm

Will Georgitis realized that losing his arm could be his last chance of survival after running out of oxygen and being trapped to the bottom of the Cooper River in South Carolina by an alligator.

Georgitis told The Post and Courier that the alligator had locked jaws on his arm and that when he attempted to break free by stabbing it with the screwdriver he uses to remove fossilized shark teeth from the riverbank, the gator shook him and pulled him fifty feet (15 meters) below.

He told the Charleston newspaper, “I knew right then and there that I was going to die.”

On April 15, when Georgitis came to the top of his dive almost out of breath, the alligator struck. The gator’s fangs crushed the arm he raised in protection as his tank drained. Georgitis thought he had a last opportunity.

Georgitis said to ABC’s Good Morning America, “I put my feet up against him and just launched back as hard as I possibly could and somehow ripped my arm out and not off.”

Georgitis was rescued and sent to the hospital after he desperately swam to a friend’s waiting boat. He said that in order to seal the wounds caused by the alligator’s fangs, he required “a ton” of staples to mend his fractured arm.

Six months of recuperation are likely in store, along with many procedures. His family has created a GoFundMe page in order to collect money for his medical expenses.

“I consider every moment I have from now on a blessing,” Georgitis said on Good Morning America.

Georgitis often dives the seas around Charleston in search of fossils, including shark teeth. He has visited the location of the assault on at least thirty occasions, and while he has previously seen alligators, they have often kept far away or were sunbathing on the back.

He was shocked because the moment he emerged, this one ran straight for him.

The assault has been reported to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, which is looking into it.

There are around 100,000 alligators in South Carolina, which are federally protected animals with tight guidelines for when they may be killed or relocated, according to wildlife authorities.

Alligator attacks are uncommon and often occur on land when a person falls into a pond or an alligator attacks a pet. Since 2016, there have been at least six deadly alligator attacks in South Carolina.

at 2007 at Lake Moultire, an alligator weighing 550 pounds (250 kg) attacked and severed the limb of a snorkeler. He stumbled towards the coast in need of assistance, and five nurses attending a picnic administered first aid to him until paramedics came.