Horrifying video footage captured the moments after a man had his right arm bitten off by an alligator as he went out to relieve himself because the line for the restroom at a Florida bar was too long.
The new clip shows Jordan Rivera, 23, writhing in pain on the muddy banks of a pond outside Banditos in Port Charlotte, just north of Fort Myers, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The video begins with a group encountering Rivera splashing in the shallows. “Get the f*** out of the water,” says a voice. The person answering then says that Rivera was bitten by an alligator. “His whole arm came off,” says the narrator.
Another man begins to pull Rivera through the mud by his left arm as the earlier voice can be heard repeating, “Get the hell out of the water.” The group then begins to place a tourniquet on the wound using a belt.
At that moment, Rivera starts screaming. One of the group tries to reassure him by saying, “I know it’s going to hurt, but I have to stop the bleeding.”
A quick-thinking bar patron watched Jordan Rivera apply a tourniquet while smoking a cigarette
The savior who saved life by smoking cigarettes quickly put a tourniquet on Rivera’s wounds
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) said a nuisance gator trapper removed the 12-foot gator (pictured here) from the property. It was subsequently euthanized
The man tells Rivera that his brachial artery, a large blood vessel supplying blood to numerous parts of the body has been injured.
Rivera continues to wail in pain, one woman tells him to ‘keep calm’ while another voice says, ‘You’re a good brother, you’re a good brother.’
Another off-camera person dealing with a 911 operator says a tourniquet was applied to the wound. The lifesaver says, “I have a tourniquet on. They have to come here… they have to come here.”
Others tell Rivera to stay awake, while a man calls the victim a “soldier.” The clip ends with Rivera being carried away in a waiting ambulance.
On Monday, Rivera told NBC2 from his ICU bed that he barely remembers the incident.
‘I didn’t lose my life, I lost an arm, it’s not the end of the world. While I was going there something happened that made me stumble or the ground went down under me. I ended up in the water. And that’s literally the last thing I remember,” he said.
His mother Teresa Lessa said, “I call them angels, who were there, who saved his life. The chance that someone is there with a tourniquet, it’s a miracle to me that he’s here.’
“The first thing I would do is shake the man’s hand,” Rivera said NBC2.
Jordan Rivera (pictured), 23, was attacked by a 10-foot-long alligator in the early hours of Sunday morning
Teresa Lessa, Jordan Rivera’s mother, sits by his bedside in the hospital as he waits for a second operation on his arm
Rivera said he fell into a pond after using it to go to the bathroom because the line at Banditos bar (pictured) was too long
Witness Manny Hidalgo, who came to the rescue, said: ‘He screamed and swam to the shoreline.
“I ran and dragged him onto the sand. I was afraid to get close to the water because it was dark outside.
“I don’t know if it was a mama gator trying to save her cub or a papa gator trying to feed his family… but the guy was very lucky,” he said. The daily sun.
Rivera, of Englewood, was airlifted to Gulf Coast Hospital in Fort Myers, but his arm could not be saved, Todd Dunn said for Charlotte County Fire and EMS.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) said a nuisance crocodile hunter removed the 12-foot-long beast from the property. It was subsequently euthanized.
a GoFundMe page was set up to help Rivera’s family pay his medical bills. At the time of writing, the page has raised almost $50,000.
It was reported that doctors have yet to perform another procedure on Mr. Rivera to ensure his arm is free of bacteria passed to him from the alligator’s teeth.
Last month, a 72-year-old man had his right leg torn off below the knee in a gruesome gator attack before conservationists shot and killed two massive predators.
Also in Florida, the unidentified man was working outside his Titusville home with his wife and dog one afternoon when the huge alligator emerged from the canal.
After the attack, one of the beasts still had the wounded man’s foot dangling from its mouth.
In February, 85-year-old Gloria Serge tragically died after being mauled by a 10-foot-long alligator while trying to rescue her beloved dog, Trooper.
Mrs. Serge’s dog survived the attack, but the gator was later captured and euthanized.
She was the third victim to die from an alligator attack in Florida since last July.
FWC officials warn of the dangers of these predators as they become more active in the spring and summer.
Serge (pictured) was a grandmother living in the Spanish Lakes Fairways retirement community in Fort Pierce, Florida, when she was killed by an alligator
They also warn those living in Florida to always be vigilant when near water.
Florida has a population of 1.3 million alligators in its 67 counties, and they can be found in most freshwater bodies and occasionally in saltwater.
But the number of cases of people being attacked by alligators in the state is small.
From 1948 to 2021, Florida has experienced 442 unprovoked biting incidents, 26 of which resulted in fatalities.
Over the past decade, Florida has had an average of eight unprovoked bites per year severe enough to require professional medical treatment, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says on its website.
“The odds of a Florida resident being seriously injured in an unprovoked alligator incident in Florida are about one in 3.1 million,” it said.