A WOMAN had her leg ripped open by a huge eight foot-long alligator while she was out swimming in lake.
Nichole Tillman, 26, from Melbourne, Florida, suffered serious injuries over the holiday weekend and had to be airlifted from Lake Wilderness Park in Cocoa.
The gator, which was reportedly 8-foot-6-inches long, attacked Nichole on Saturday afternoon while she was out taking a dip at the popular swimming spot.
Eyewitness Dave Nygard told ABC News: “We’re hanging out about waist to chest deep in the lake, next thing you know a girl starts screaming and luckily a couple guys reacted and grab her.
“I thought she was more or less joking around… next thing you know we pull her out and her side and her thigh were open. So then about 30 seconds later I see a gator head pop up. It was every bit of 8 foot.”
Rescuers rushed to help the woman who was put in an all-terrain vehicle and driven a couple of miles out of the woods where she was put on an air ambulance and flown to Holmes Regional Medical Centre in Melbourne.
Brevard County Fire District Chief Thomas Uzel said: “We have a female who was allegedly bit by an alligator. She was out in the woods, swimming in a lake, from what we understand.
“She was classified as a trauma alert and she was transported to Holmes.”
Officials described her injuries as “significant”.
An alligator catcher responded to the scene and successfully removed the alligator.
There were about a dozen people swimming in the lake at the time of the attack.
Nygard said: “I mean, it’s scary. Just thankful a little kid wasn’t in the lake at the time, because more or less the gator probably would’ve gotten the kid.”
Several people grabbed towels and shirts and wrapped her side and leg and then they rushed her up here to the [road].”
Alligator attacks in the area are a rarity but not unknown in the southern states with Uzel saying it was only the second in 35 years in that area.
Nygard added: “Usually gators are not intrusive on people.
“They’re more or less more scared of us than we are of them, so for the gator to come up and – he was curious more or less – so thank goodness we got her out and hopefully she’s doing fine right now.”
Cassandra Cline was killed by an alligator in South Carolina in August last year when she tried to save her dog from attack.
A 13ft alligator weighing 50-stone was discovered by conservationists in Georgia, US, in March this year.
An adult alligator can grow up to 14ft with the largest ever recorded measuring 19.2ft for one found in Louisiana.
According to figures released in March this year seven people were attacked by crocodiles in the UK.
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