Florida man, 74, keeps cigar clenched in his mouth while rescuing his pet.
Florida man, 74, keeps cigar clenched in his mouth while rescuing his pet.
LEE COUNTY, Fla. — James King
A 74-year-old man saved his yelping puppy from the jaws of an alligator who snatched the pet from the shore of a Florida lake.
Cigar-chomping Richard Wilbanks hit the headlines this week when he was filmed saving his pup, Gunner, from a predator at a lake in Lee County, Florida.
Throughout the ordeal, which lasted almost a minute, Wilbanks stayed so calm that his cigar never left his mouth. “I guess I just clamped down on that cigar and didn’t even realize it.”
The retiree was out walking the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel when it started sniffing around the edge of the lake. Within seconds, an alligator leaped out and dragged Gunner under the water.
“Normally, I look out for alligators and usually you can see their eyes or snout, but this one was submerged and was under some weeds,” said Wilbanks. “It just came out of the water like a rocket and grabbed Gunner.
“I really didn’t think. I just jumped in the water after the alligator. I didn’t know how big it was or anything. I went under the water, grabbed it and when we came up, I fought it.”
He did suffer some cuts on his hand during the encounter. “Once I got Gunner out of its mouth, it had my fingers in there. So I had to work my hands out of its mouth. I went home and put some superglue on them. The doctor wanted me to get some stitches, but I just filled the cuts with glue and pushed them together.”
As for Gunner, he spent a few days recovering at the vet after sustaining some cuts and getting water in his lungs. Going forward, Wilbanks vows to keep Gunner on a much tighter leash. .
Despite the encounter, Wilbanks still feels “nature is a wonderful thing. I just don’t want to share my puppy with it.”
Statistics on how often dogs are snatched by alligators in the Sunshine State were not immediately available. But according to figures compiled by a personal-injury lawyer-referral site, a typical year sees three encounters between humans and gators that result in major injuries.
“The chance of someone being attacked is one in 3.2 million,” the site notes. “The worst years for fatalities were 2001 and 2006, with three people dying each of those years from Florida alligator attacks. And there have only been 23 fatalities between 1948 and 2016 [the most recent year for which statistics are available].”
(Edited by Matthew B Hall and Fern Siegel)
