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MIAMI (Reuters) - An 11-foot bull alligator tore off a man's arm and swallowed it at a north Florida botanical garden, wildlife officials said on Tuesday.
Trappers killed the alligator and recovered the severed arm from its stomach but doctors said it was too badly mangled to try reattaching it.
The injured man, Dan Goodman, was listed in fair condition at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, where he was "in good spirits," a spokeswoman said.
Goodman, 58, is the director of the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens near the north central Florida city of Gainesville.
He was weeding a lily pond on Monday, standing in about 4 feet of water, when he apparently stepped on the 392-pound male alligator, Capt. Roy Brown of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.
The alligator "lunged up and grabbed ahold of his right arm and severed it just below the elbow," Brown said.
Goodman climbed out of the pond and shouted for a co-worker, who took off his shirt and fashioned it into a tourniquet to help stanch the bleeding until paramedics arrived.
Trappers harpooned the alligator and hoisted it to the bank, where a sheriff's deputy shot it in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun and killed it, Brown said.
"I physically slit the alligator open, reached in, and I could feel the victim's arm in the stomach," Brown told Reuters by phone. "I was able to sever the stomach and pull the victim's arm out."
The arm was recovered about 90 minutes after the attack, he said. Paramedics took it to the hospital but it was too badly damaged to be reattached.
WILD ALLIGATOR NAMED MO-JO
Goodman will need hospital care for at least several more days, said Dr. Larry Chidgey, who operated on him.
"The biggest risk now is infection," Chidgey told a news conference. "He will need additional surgery to try and make sure there are no other dead tissues present that could lead to infection."
He said Goodman was alert enough to describe the attack when he arrived at the hospital.
"He did recall that the alligator obviously grabbed his arm, there was a twisting type action," the doctor said.
The alligator was a wild alligator that lived at a nearby pond and occasionally wandered into the lily pond at the botanical garden, where workers called it Mo-Jo.
Goodman told wildlife officials he did not see the alligator until it attacked.
They said the alligator might have mistaken Goodman's splashing the pond for that of a duck or wading bird, their natural prey. Because it was used to being around people, it had probably lost its natural fear of humans, Brown said.
Signs posted around the gardens warn people to watch out for alligators.
Florida wildlife officials have documented 300 alligator attacks on humans, 12 of them fatal, since they began keeping records in 1948. Brown estimated Florida's alligator population at 1 million.
"When you say Florida, that's almost synonymous with alligators," he said.
Trappers killed the alligator and recovered the severed arm from its stomach but doctors said it was too badly mangled to try reattaching it.
The injured man, Dan Goodman, was listed in fair condition at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida, where he was "in good spirits," a spokeswoman said.
Goodman, 58, is the director of the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens near the north central Florida city of Gainesville.
He was weeding a lily pond on Monday, standing in about 4 feet of water, when he apparently stepped on the 392-pound male alligator, Capt. Roy Brown of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said.
The alligator "lunged up and grabbed ahold of his right arm and severed it just below the elbow," Brown said.
Goodman climbed out of the pond and shouted for a co-worker, who took off his shirt and fashioned it into a tourniquet to help stanch the bleeding until paramedics arrived.
Trappers harpooned the alligator and hoisted it to the bank, where a sheriff's deputy shot it in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun and killed it, Brown said.
"I physically slit the alligator open, reached in, and I could feel the victim's arm in the stomach," Brown told Reuters by phone. "I was able to sever the stomach and pull the victim's arm out."
The arm was recovered about 90 minutes after the attack, he said. Paramedics took it to the hospital but it was too badly damaged to be reattached.
WILD ALLIGATOR NAMED MO-JO
Goodman will need hospital care for at least several more days, said Dr. Larry Chidgey, who operated on him.
"The biggest risk now is infection," Chidgey told a news conference. "He will need additional surgery to try and make sure there are no other dead tissues present that could lead to infection."
He said Goodman was alert enough to describe the attack when he arrived at the hospital.
"He did recall that the alligator obviously grabbed his arm, there was a twisting type action," the doctor said.
The alligator was a wild alligator that lived at a nearby pond and occasionally wandered into the lily pond at the botanical garden, where workers called it Mo-Jo.
Goodman told wildlife officials he did not see the alligator until it attacked.
They said the alligator might have mistaken Goodman's splashing the pond for that of a duck or wading bird, their natural prey. Because it was used to being around people, it had probably lost its natural fear of humans, Brown said.
Signs posted around the gardens warn people to watch out for alligators.
Florida wildlife officials have documented 300 alligator attacks on humans, 12 of them fatal, since they began keeping records in 1948. Brown estimated Florida's alligator population at 1 million.
"When you say Florida, that's almost synonymous with alligators," he said.
