Moment couple driving home from date night stumble across alligator attack victim
A Florida couple returning home from a romantic date night stopped to help what they thought was a hit-and-run victim before discovering he had lost his arm to an alligator attack.
Ismael Rainey, 25, hit the brakes when he saw the man lying motionless on a jogging path next to Lake Monroe in Sanford.
He and partner Kendall Hardester jumped out of their car and without thinking, ran over to help.
“It was probably about 1:30 in the morning, we were driving back home and we passed a man who was basically laying here on his side, covered in blood,” Hardester said.
‘He was missing his arm here; you could see his bone and all the flesh coming out of it.”
“It was horrible,” said Kendall Hardester, “At first I thought he got hit by a car or something.”
Hardester made sure that the injured man pressed a towel hard on his injury
Investigators later identified the man as Dustin Crousser, 31, a homeless man who had decided to swim naked late at night in the alligator-infested waters.
“I just ran there,” Hardester said Fox35. “There was a small towel he had with him, so I grabbed it, covered his arm with it and squeezed it until the paramedics got there.
“I just squeezed his elbow area as tight as I could.”
Other passersby stopped at the scene and called 911 while Hardester tended to the seriously injured man.
Footage shows paramedics taking him to hospital on a stretcher.
“It lasted probably five minutes, then another guy came and started helping me,” Hardester said.
The brave young woman said she has no nursing experience, but her motherly instincts kicked in.
‘It was horrible. At first I thought he had been hit by a car or something,” she explained.
“You would never think it was an alligator, especially at that time of day.
“It was just a hectic situation, and if it was me, I would want someone to help.”
Rainey said he never imagined he would be in such a situation.
Ismael Rainey said he never imagined he would find himself in the situation he found at Lake Monroe
Paramedics took the injured man to hospital in critical but stable condition
“Yeah, not something you’d ever expect, especially on a regular Saturday night, which ends your evening going home,” he added.
“You don’t expect to encounter something like this.”
Crousser was taken to HCA Lake Monroe Hospital in critical but stable condition.
What remained of his arm was later amputated from the elbow down.
Hardester said she wouldn’t hesitate to help again in the future.
“If I were to encounter a situation like that again, I would definitely do that,” she said.