What is it with the gators lately? This poor kid lost his arm:
Devin was swimming with two friends in the canal when they spotted a large alligator swimming toward them around 3 p.m., Sheriff Jack Strain said.
The alligator pulled Devin under water and bit off most of an arm, but the boy poked it in the eye and got free, relatives said.
The two girls who were with him ran for help and called 911. Three sheriff’s deputies who were in the neighborhood on traffic patrol drove as far as they could toward the lake, then ran a final 1 1/2 miles to reach the boy, Strain said.
The deputies helped the boy out of the water, and he was taken by 4-wheeler to a staging area where an ambulance picked him up and transported him to Slidell Memorial Hospital.
And the other day a gator was gumming up traffic:
Staci Nelson, 39, of LaPlace and her 10-year-old daughter sat in traffic for almost an hour, wondering if a cluster of mobile homes they had seen was slowing traffic on the interstate.
“My daughter and I looked at each other and said, ‘An alligator?’ ” said Nelson. “All of this for an alligator.”
Authorities initially thought the alligator was dead but soon found out they were wrong, State Police spokesman Trooper Joseph Piglia said.
“They walked up to it and its mouth opened and it started coming at them, ” Piglia said. “They got back in their cars. It was still feisty.”
I know the alligator is kind of an unofficial symbol for the New Orleans area – well, southeast Louisiana for that matter – but I’ve lived here the majority of my life and two gator stories in a month, much less a week, is strange.
Just wait – someone will blame it on global warming in 5… 4… 3…
