Florida Fisherman Survives Alligator Attack

A Florida fisherman had a close call when an alligator attacked him, but his quick thinking helped him escape. James Grayson McMicken, 71, was enjoying a peaceful evening of fishing with his bulldog behind his North Fort Myers home on July 3 when the alligator lunged at him after just one cast.

“I started staggering, and the water came out and caught me,” McMicken recounted. The alligator clamped onto his right leg, dragging him into the canal, leaving him with mere seconds to react.

Luckily for McMicken, who has experience hunting alligators, he instinctively fought back. “He rolled me off the shore and into the water. I stuck my thumb in one eye, picked up a fishing rod, and kept jabbing it in the other eye. It felt like forever, but it wasn’t long at all. Then he loosened up,” he explained.

Once he managed to fend off the creature, McMicken found himself bleeding heavily from the deep bite in his leg. He had to figure out how to get back home. Calling to his bulldog for help, he was able to use her to leverage himself up and hobbled home.

After his wife cleaned the wound, he collapsed into a chair, utterly exhausted. His family quickly took him to a local hospital where medical staff sewed and stapled both sides of his injured leg. McMicken, with his harrowing story, became something of a local celebrity at the hospital.

“All the nurses came by to ask me what happened,” he said. “I’m going to do everything in my power not to die. I’m not going to let the crocodile get rid of me.”

Now recovering at home, McMicken is preparing to begin physical therapy. He has no plans to give up his beloved hobby but certainly intends to be more cautious when fishing near the canal.

This incident comes on the heels of two other alligator attacks in Florida: one resulted in the death of 31-year-old Brittany Clark, who was attacked while swimming in the Econlockhatchee River, and another involved a Pennsylvania boy who lost his hand fishing with family at Nelson’s Fish Camp.

While alligator attacks are uncommon in Florida, where over a million of the reptiles inhabit freshwater bodies, they do occur from time to time.