(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
A Florida man who lost an arm after an alligator bit him while trying to pee outside a bar says it’s “not the end of the world.”
A local NBC affiliate identified Jordan Rivera as the man in question. Rivera reportedly lost his right arm early Sunday morning behind Banditos Bar in Port Charlotte, Florida.
The 23-year-old somehow remained optimistic about the incident despite losing an appendage, he tells the outlet.
“I was just trying to go over there and take a little pee and whatnot,” he said. “I didn’t lose my life,” Rivera told NBC2. “I lost an arm. It’s not the end of the world…”
Rivera continued: “Those gators, I didn’t truly understand them until I woke up in the hospital and, ‘Oh, gator got your arm.'”
The reptile responsible for the limb-tearing bite was a whopping 10-foot-5 inches long. It has since been taken from the pond and euthanized as per Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission protocol.
Meanwhile, the outlet reports that Rivera conducted the NBC2 interview just 1.5 days after losing the arm.
The gator bit off his right arm just above the elbow, nearly killing Jordan. But, he added, he can “still move my arm around and whatnot.”
“They got my elbow. So, I don’t have an elbow,” Rivera said. “I can still move my arm around and whatnot.”
He told the outlet of what he remembered from that morning. After noticing the bathroom lines at Banditos were too long, Rivera walked to the pond out back to relieve himself.
“So I ended up walking over to the water hole, I didn’t realize how big it was at the time, as I was going over there something happened where I either tripped or the ground below me just went down,” Rivera said. “I ended up in the water. And that’s literally the last thing I remember.”
Rivera says the next thing he remembers is being in the hospital, where he was told the gator had taken his arm.
He described the sensation of being armless and called the entire situation “almost out of a movie.”
“It kind of feels like my arm is just there, but not there,” he said. “It was just the craziest thing. It’s almost out of a movie.”
Meanwhile, his mother, Teresa Lessa, told the network that it was “very traumatic” but added, “he’s (still) here.”
“That’s the best thing, is that I have him. Yes, arm gone, very traumatic. But he’s here,” Teresa Lessa said.
Lessa thanked the bar patrons, like Manny Hidalgo, who jumped into action upon hearing Rivera scream.
“I call them angels, that were there, that saved his life,” Lessa said. “The chance of someone being there with a tourniquet, to me, it’s a miracle that he’s here.”
While many in Florida admire Rivera’s resiliency, others have accused him of trying to feed the alligator.
Rivera categorically denied feeding the gator at the time of the attack.
“That is completely not true,” he said. “They don’t even serve food at that bar, so I couldn’t have even served the gator food.”
Those interested in donating to Rivera’s GoFundMe account can do so here. Over 90 donors raised $13,955 out of a $50,000 goal as of this article’s publication.
