A sheriff's office in Florida has released frantic 911 calls from bystanders reporting an alligator attack at a retirement community that nearly killed an 85-year-old man earlier this week.
George Ihle Jr was bitten on his foot by the nearly 10-foot-long reptile at the Big Cypress Golf and Country Club in Lakeland on Monday.
Ihle's wife heard the man's screams and found him on the ground bleeding from a wound on his right foot.
'The alligator attacked my husband,' the woman tells an emergency dispatcher. 'He's laying behind a bush bleeding.'
The operator reassures the wife that help is on the way, to which the terrified caller replies, 'Please hurry.'
Another witness called in telling the disaptcher: 'There's a gator eating a man,' reported
ABC News.
A third caller later described the gruesome scene, saying that several people were applying a tourniquet to Ihle's wound, which she said was bleeding but 'not gushing.'
Polk County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Brian Bruchey said the gator pounced on the retired US Marine living with his wife at the Cypress Lakes Retirement Community at 10000 US Highway 98 North in Lakeland Monday afternoon.
According to a post on the retirement community's website, Ihle was attacked by the alligator while chasing birds off his property.
Video captured the moment the 9-foot-9 beast was yanked out of the water with Ihle's white sneaker still in its jaws, confirming that it was the right animal.
Once on dry land, the alligator was pinned to the ground, restrained and carted away.
According to wildlife officials cited by
ABC Action News, the alligator will likely be euthanized.