Woman fights off alligator with her bare hands to save puppy: “I punched him in the eye”

A Florida woman is recovering after fighting off an alligator that tried to drag her puppy into a backyard creek. (WFOR via CNN Newsource)

LAND O’LAKES, Florida — A Florida woman is recovering after fighting off an alligator that tried to drag her puppy into a backyard creek.

It happened last week in Land O’Lakes, just 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of Tampa.

Danie Wright said she was walking her four-month-old puppy, Dax, behind her house when the attack took place. The two were strolling along a stagnant creek covered in water moss, giving perfect cover for the predator, she told Tampa CBS affiliate WTSP.

“I heard a squeal, and I got pulled,” Wright said. “The alligator had him by his [collar] and dragged him, and I wasn’t gonna let go.”

She said the reptile latched onto Dax’s collar and began dragging him into the water. That’s when Wright went into fight mode.

“I just punched him, punched and punched,” she recalled. “I punched him in the eye enough that he kind of let go, he unclamped a little, and I pulled off, but his teeth dragged down my arm.”

Wright was bitten during the attack but is now recovering.

Trappers and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers later captured the five-foot (1.5 metres) alligator and removed it from the property, according to WTSP

“Just be careful with your dogs, you know these alligators are no joke,” Wright, a Floridian for 20 years, warned. “I mean, 15 feet, he came out to get him, and I didn’t see him.”

Thanks to Wright’s quick action, both she and Dax survived the harrowing encounter.