A man who lost his arm in an alligator attack has recalled how it felt like "lightning struck" when the monster clamped down with its piston jaws.
Eric Merda, 43, who runs a small business digging irrigation ditches, says he would now think twice about wading into Florida's Lake Manatee, which was where he nearly died in July this year.
Eric stripped down, flinging away his shoes and clothes because they were weighing him down as he travelled across the enormous lake.
But as he reached the halfway point, he saw a jet black reptillian eye just a few feet away bobbing along the surface of the water.
So far from shore, Eric was trapped in the playground of a beast with a bite power three times the strength of a tiger's.
As he stretched out his right arm to swim away he felt the alligator's ravenous jaws snatch aways his limb before it could touch the water.
The alligator then yanked it back so hard it snapped his elbow like a brittle twig.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Eric said: "I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit in the head hard by something metal.
"Everything turned black for half a second. It was like lightning striking."
Eric knew he had to avoid becoming a victim of the alligator's infamous "death roll" which happens when the creature pulls their prey apart piece by piece by spinning in the water.
Wrapping his free arm around its body, he repeatedly kicked the beast in a desperate attempt to stop it pulling him under.
Eric said he thought his death was imminent as the alligator dragged him under water three times.
But miraculously, the monster - with Eric's arm in its jaws - simply vanished and skulked off back under the surface.
Eric's next challenge was getting himself back to the safety of the shore as blood poured from his open wound without being attacked a second time.
With bone protruding from the stump, he started to paddle back to the shores of Lake Manatee - a man-made reservoir on Florida's Gulf Coast.
All he could think was that the alligator would circle back for him, Eric said.
Due to the severe pain and trauma of the attack, he kept hallucinating and couldn't tell whether he was awake or dreaming.
But getting to shore was just the start of the ordeal, with Eric then getting lost in a swamp for three days and night.
He was in excruciating pain due to his untreated wound and was delusional, thinking he was being stalked by a predator, he said.
