You don't want to mess with this 84-year-old woman. She's tough as nails. How tough is she? Well, she ended up punching an alligator in the face. The creature attacked her while she was out for a walk with her dog. But the Florida resident didn't back down without a fight.
Now, she's speaking out to share exactly what happened.
"It was like a torpedo," North Fort Myers resident Del Boppel told local TV station WBBH. "I didn't see anything go that fast in my life. I didn't have time to think."
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She said the alligator attacked her on Thursday evening. She had always typically walked her dog around that time. The Florida resident usually walks around the Julia Mobile Home Park. But she got a bit too close to the pond.
"All of a sudden, I had a premonition, I'm telling you," Boppel told the news station. "It was like, 'Uh-oh.'" Thinking fast, Boppel threw her shih tzu, Queen, up away from the alligator.
Alligator Bites Woman
She then punched the creature in the face. For her trouble, the
alligator bit her in the leg and hand. It then fled away. Apparently, gators are pretty common in the area. "The gator is in my side yard all the time," one neighbor told the station. "There's one, and then there's a little, a smaller one, but this was the bigger one."
Following the attack, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson said they managed to locate the alligator. They then relocated the creature an alligator farm away from the park. Fortunately for the 84-year-old, a neighbor saved her life.
He said, "I was outside, and I heard someone screaming."
He continued, "I ran down there. And she was laying on the ground with her dog, and [she] said that the alligator came up to get the dog. She pulled the dog out of the way and the gator got her leg and arm and hand."
"He was a thick gator," Burlingham added. "She's lucky she didn't lose her life."
