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A 71-year-old Florida man fought off an alligator using his fishing pole after the animal jumped out of the water and dragged him into a canal behind his home.
James Grayson McMicken said he was enjoying what seemed like a routine night in North Fort Myers, Florida, when the encounter suddenly turned into a fight for his life.
McMicken had taken his bulldog outside and brought his fishing pole with him before making a single cast into the canal behind his house.
“I started reeling, and it jumped out of the water and grabbed me,” McMicken recalled.
The alligator clamped down on his right leg and pulled him off the bank into the water.
Florida man uses fishing pole to escape alligator attack
“He rolled me down off the bank into the water. I stuck my thumb in one eye, and I just took that fishing pole and jabbed him in that other eye and jabbed him and jabbed him and jabbed him,” McMicken said. “It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t that long. But then, he turned loose.”
McMicken said he has legally hunted alligators before, and believes that experience helped him survive the attack.
James Grayson McMicken
“I’ve always heard that if you’ve got no other choice, get them eyes, and that’s what got him off of me,” he said.
After the gator released him, McMicken still had to get back to his house. He said his bulldog helped him stand up after he called her over.
McMicken eventually made it inside, where his wife cleaned him up before he passed out from exhaustion. His family then rushed him to the hospital where nurses were incredibly impressed that he survived the encounter.
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He received staples and stitches for deep bite wounds on both sides of his right leg and is now recovering at home while starting physical therapy.
“I’m going to do everything I can not to die,” McMicken said. “No gator is going to run me off.”
This isn’t the first time a Floridian has made headlines for fighting off a gator. Last year, a Florida woman defended herself from a five-foot alligator with her fists to save her puppy from being dragged into a creek.
In another incident back in 2023, TikToker Dave Franks went viral after posting a video where a zoo visitor jumped into an enclosure and started wrestling an alligator to help a handler trapped by the animal.
