Alligator bites off swimming teen's arm in Fla.

[Are_grits_groceries]

MOORE HAVEN, Fla. (AP) -- A Florida teenager has lost his right arm below the elbow to an attacking alligator.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Jorge Pino told Fort Myers television station WBBH ( http://bit.ly/NljdlO ) the teen's arm was still inside the 11-foot alligator when it was hunted down and killed Monday evening.

The television station reports 17-year-old Kaleb Langdale was rushed to a Fort Myers hospital but the arm couldn't be reattached.

Langdale was swimming in the Caloosahatchee (kal-oos-ah-HAT'-chee) River near Moore Haven when the attack occurred.,Matt Baker says the gator swam straight at Langdale. It bit the teen's arm and pulled him under water.

Another friend, Gary Beck says Langdale popped out of the water, screaming "my arm is gone."
Officials say it's alligator mating season and attacks are not uncommon.

Information from: WBBH-TV, http://www.nbc-2.com/

Mother Nature can be a real b****.

[DCKit]

1. It's what they do. nt

[AngryAmish]

2. Ain't gonna be swimming too good now, boyo

[aikoaiko]

3. Damn. Poor kid.

There are a lot of gators in southern rivers and ponds. We're fortunate these things don't happen more often.

[d_r]

4. one of the problems is people feeding alligators

now they are always looking for a hand out.

[Ezlivin]

5. We used to swim all over Florida

when I was a teen. And we never worried about alligators.

In retrospect that seems odd, but there were no big reports of this sort of stuff in the sixties and seventies.

[XemaSab]

8. They were endangered back then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator#Endangered_species_recovery

[Ezlivin]

9. That makes sense

It's hard to believe how quickly things can change in a couple, well hell, three decades.

I can now recall alligators being considered endangered. That's probably why we swam with such abandon. Ah, youth!

[SoCalDem]

6. Swimming in rivers where gators "could" be is NEVER a good idea

Killing the gator does no good. If the gator saunters into the kid's room & attacks him, that's a different thing altogether.

I'm sorry he lost his arm, but he was old enough to understand the danger, and his luck ran out.

[MoonRiver]

10. I think they were trying to get the arm back

to see if it could be reattached. But I agree killing the creature does no good. Unfortunately, lots of teens don't have much common sense.

[WI_DEM]

7. Why do people go swimming in rivers where there are alligators!?