A normal family outing in one of the rivers in the US state of Florida turned into a terrifying confrontation, after a huge “Alligator” crocodile attacked a 58-year-old woman. She fought with him in a struggle with her bare hands that ended with her losing her right arm and parts of the fingers of her left hand, before she was able, despite her serious injuries, to reach the river bank and survive.
According to a report published by the Israeli website “N12”, Dina Spahn, 58 years old, was spending last weekend with her family members on a trip on the Silver River in Marion County, Florida, when a huge “Alligator” crocodile appeared in front of her and was waiting for her before attacking her.
A few minutes before the attack, her son, Zach Gerena, 38 years old and a father of five children, had left his mother with a number of relatives, before later seeing what she had been exposed to.
“The Alligator approached her. She tried to push him away using a stick, and then he attacked her,” Guerina said in an interview with the New York Post.
Spann began resisting the animal with her hands, and tried to close its mouth during the battle, while trying to swim upward to get air and keep it away from her legs, according to her son’s account.
During the confrontation, Spann lost parts of the fingers on her left hand, before the Alligator clamped its jaws on her right arm.
“She simply could not let this happen,” her son said, adding: “The situation was crazy.”
The struggle between Spahn and the Alligator continued, until she lost her entire right arm after it was amputated below the elbow.
However, she was able to reach the river bank, where a boat approached her, and she was able to board it and save her life.
People who were present at the scene tried to help Spann during her confrontation with the Alligator, and they also provided her with first aid immediately after she emerged from the water.
“Her arm was literally hanging by a thread,” her son told the New York Post.
Spann’s arm and the top of her swimsuit were tied with a rope and used as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding until rescue teams arrived, who transported her to a nearby hospital.
According to her son, his mother is still in the hospital and may need to undergo more surgeries, but she is in “good spirits.”
Gerina said that his mother is retired and has a strong personality, adding: “She doesn’t look at it and say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t have a hand anymore.’ She looks at it and says, ‘This is a completely crazy story.’”
When asked why the Allegator specifically attacked his mother instead of the younger family members who were with her in the river, Gerina said that she was standing in front of the others.
He pointed out that the family finds a little solace in the fact that the attack did not affect everyone present.
Although swimming in the river is forbidden, Gerina placed part of the responsibility on tourists who get too close to the Alligator, noting that some people, according to him, even go so far as to pet these animals and feed them.
He called on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to grant more permits to hunt large allegitors.
About 24 hours after the incident, Alligator hunters arrived at the river and were able to catch an animal measuring about 2.95 meters in length.
After that, the river was reopened to the public.
The attack on Spann was not the first of its kind in Florida, as it occurred only a few weeks after the death of a California woman as a result of an Alligator bite in the same state.
Between the direct confrontation that Spann fought with her bare hands and her injury that cost her an arm and parts of her fingers, the moments of terror ended with her escaping an attack that could have been fatal, while the incident re-highlighted the dangers of approaching the alligators in areas where these animals are widespread.
