14 DAY TRIAL // Not too long ago, 9-year-old James Barney Jr. from Florida, US, was attacked by an alligator. The boy not only wrestled the beast, but lived to tell the tale of this very close encounter with one of nature's most efficient killing machines.
Information shared with the public says that the incident occurred in Florida's Osceola County. The 9-year-old remembers that, on the day of the attack, he spent some time riding his bicycle around Lake Tohopekaliga.
By the looks of it, the weather was very hot. At one point, James Barney Jr. decided that the heat was simply too much for him to handle, and went for a swim in Lake Tohopekaliga, hoping to cool off.
While splashing and swimming around Lake Tohopekaliga, not far from the shoreline, the 9-year-old boy felt that something was touching one of his legs. At first, he assumed that someone was looking to have some fun teasing him.
However, he soon realized that what he was in fact dealing with was an alligator that was looking to turn him into its next meal. Despite being bitten several times, the boy somehow managed to escape the animal's jaws and swam to shore.
“It really amazed me what happened. At first, I thought someone was just playing with me, and I didn't know what happened,” 9-year-old James Barney Jr. told the press in an interview, as cited by Daily Mail.
“I reached down to grab it, and I felt its jaw, I felt its teeth, and I didn't know what to do, so I immediately reacted and hit it a couple times. And I had enough strength to pry its jaw open,” the boy went on to detail.
After making it to shore, the boy got help from a group of people who happened to be in the area at the time of the attack. Authorities and medical experts were alerted, and the 9-year-old was taken to a local hospital. Here, doctors counted as many as 30 teeth marks and 3 bites on his body.
What's more, word has it that, when biting into James Barney Jr.'s flesh, the alligator left one of its teeth behind. The boy says that he plans to turn this tooth into a necklace and wear it as a reminder of his ordeal and his very lucky escape.
The alligator behind this attack is estimated to weigh about 400 pounds (approximately 181 kilograms) and measure as much as 9 feet (roughly 2.7 meters) in length. Authorities are now looking for the beast, and say that, should they manage to locate it, they will most likely kill it to make sure it will never again attack people.