A Florida 13-year-old is speaking out after he survived an attack from an alligator where the reptile only let go of his right leg after the teenager punched him.
Gabriel Klimis, 13, was playing with friends at Howell Creek near Orlando this past Tuesday.
He jumped off a bridge using a rope to attempt to cross the creek when he felt something.
‘One of my feet was on the sand and then the gator got my other one and then pulled me back,’ Klimis said.
The gator hung on to his right leg, with Klimis fully understanding the danger he was in.
Gabriel Klimis (pictured right), 13, was playing with friends at Howell Creek near Orlando earlier this week when he was attacked by the gator, shown here
‘I knew that if he didn’t let go, there was no getting him off because his jaw was so tied on,’ he said. ‘There’s no getting out of that.’
‘I just felt a tug on me, and I already knew what it was from the start…’ he told News 6. ‘I just slapped the water and started, like, trying to push him off of me.’
Klimis’ response was to punch the gator in an attempt to fight back while holding onto a stick on the shore to keep from being pulled further in.
‘He kept pulling, so then I just tried to hit him and then he let go and then I ran up as fast as I could,’ he told Fox 35.
Klimis quickly ran for the nearest house, where he called his mother, who told him to dial 911.
‘I was in complete shock,’ said Allison Klimis, his mother and herself a doctor. ‘Terror, of course. Super scared.’
However, her 13-year-old son remained calm, simply telling the 911 dispatcher: ‘Yeah, I can walk. I just got bit by a gator.’
‘It just stings a bit but I’m good,’ Kimis continued, saying he wasn’t ‘bleeding too bad, but my skin’s like open pretty good.’
Gabriel Klimis survived the alligator attack and was even able to punch back at the reptile
Klimis, 13, was playing with friends at Howell Creek near Orlando earlier this
‘I was in complete shock,’ said Allison Klimis (pictured right), his mother and herself a doctor. ‘Terror, of course. Super scared’
Klimis was taken to a local hospital and given stitches on his leg and is anticipated to make a full recovery
The dispatcher then asked Klimis what happened to the gator.
‘I don’t know,’ the boy answered. ‘I got out of the water as fast as I could.’
Klimis was taken to a local hospital and given stitches on his leg and is anticipated to make a full recovery.
‘In the end, I’m just blessed, grateful, thankful that the angels were watching over him and God was there because I know without that, my son could definitely be gone,’ mother Allison added.
Her son says he’s even going to continue his outdoor adventures this summer.
Gabriel says the gator attack isn’t going to stop him from having fun with his friends this summer
‘It’s not going to stop me from swimming somewhere else, like in a different creek or something, with my friends and having fun,’ he said.
Allison Klimis has started a Gofundme in an attempt to raise $15,000 to cover Gabriel’s medical expenses.
The Florida Wildlife Conservation said Thursday that they are ‘fairly confident’ they trapped the eight-foot gator from the incident.
