LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. – A Pasco County woman and her puppy are lucky to be alive after an alligator dragged them into a creek.
The backstory:
Danie Wright was walking her four-month-old puppy, Dax behind her home in Land O’ Lakes earlier this month.
Wright says she rescued Dax, who only weighs about five pounds, a couple of months ago.
“He loves everybody,” Wright said. “He loves every dog he’s ever met. I think he liked the alligator, honestly.”
She says her family has lived in the home for about 20 years and has never seen a gator in the creek behind it.
“So, I walked him back here, which I very rarely do,” she said.
The bank between the homes and the creek is small, but steep. Wright and Dax were only a few feet away from the murky creek.
“He was on a leash and everything, but I had just heard a squeal, and then I got tugged,” Wright said.
The creek has a thick layer of algae and debris coating the surface, so Wright couldn’t see anything below the surface.
Wright says she was standing on the bank looking away from the creek when she felt a tug on the leash.
“As soon as he went in the creek, I went into the creek and realized, ‘Oh god, this is an alligator’,” she said.
Wright says the alligator had crept up the bank, grabbed Dax and started dragging both of them down into the water.
She says she noticed that the alligator had clamped its jaws around an Airtag on Dax’s collar.
“It looked like he had him by the throat,” Wright said. “Literally a half a centimeter, I think, it would have just punctured in his throat and most likely killed him.”
With one arm Wright ripped Dax from the grip of the alligator’s jaws and threw him up onto the hill.
“But my left arm was in the alligator at this point,” she said.
In that moment, Wright knew she had no choice but to fight for her own life now. She says the alligator was about five feet long, which is about her size.
“I got him flipped over with my left arm in his mouth and I punched a couple of times and I think I did like an elbow, and got him like right here and he just loosened his grip enough that I could pull it out,” she said.
Wright wrestled her arm out of the gator’s mouth, grabbed Dax and bolted up onto the bank.
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She called 911 and first responders and a trapper came out to wrangle the gator.
Wright had cuts on her leg and up her arm, which had to be bandaged. She says Dax wasn’t injured.
“I could have lost my arm,” Wright said. “I could’ve lost my dog. Could’ve been so much worse. Look, he has no care in the world.”
Although Wright says she doesn’t usually walk Dax in the backyard, she says she’ll only walk Dax in the front yard from now on.
She shares her message for other dog owners.
What they’re saying:
“Put your phones down,” she said. “I was on my phone, standing here, facing the other way of him with a creek behind me.”
Wright is still shaken up, but she’s thankful that she and Dax are safe, and that all the alligator managed to get away with was one of her sandals.
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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Kylie Jones.
