(VitalNews.org) – A 13-year-old boy has survived an alligator attack in Winter Springs, Florida. Gabriel Klimis was playing in the shallow waters of Howard Creek Trestle with his friends and younger brother when the creature bit his right leg and attempted to pull him back into the water.
Klimis had just finished jumping into the creek and was attempting to get back up to the shore when he felt the alligator’s jaws lock on tight. He had one leg on the sand already but was certain that the animal would succeed in dragging him under the water unless he could convince it to let go.
The quick-thinking teen grabbed hold of a sturdy stick on the shore to anchor himself and repeatedly punched the alligator in the head until it released its grip on his leg. As soon as it let go, he ran up the shore with his friends and sought help from the first house he came to.
Safely inside, he called his mother, Dr. Allison Klimis, a pediatrician. She later told reporters that she was terrified upon hearing of her son’s close call in the creek, but she was able to advise her son to call 911 and ask for medical help.
When paramedics arrived to treat his wounds, they decided to send him to the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children for stitches. His bite wound stretched from his thigh to above his hip, but within a few hours, he was photographed sitting up in his hospital bed and posing quite calmly for the camera.
Despite suffering what was a potentially life-threatening attack, Gabriel Klimis remains completely unfazed and is determined to get back in the water with his friends throughout the summer. He did, however, suggest that he would find a different creek to play in. An eight-foot-long alligator was captured and killed near the site of the attack not long after the incident, but nobody can be certain that it was the same one that attacked Klimis.
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