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Florida Alligator Man - Tooth & Claw

Snap Judgment

Thu Jan 08 2026

Can the dreaded Alligator Death Roll actually save your life? One man risks life and limb in the Florida swamplands.

Summary

Snap Judgment Podcast: "Florida Alligator Man - Tooth & Claw"

Air Date: January 8, 2026
Host: Glynn Washington
Storyteller: Eric Murda

Episode Overview

This riveting episode of Snap Judgment’s "Tooth & Claw" series explores the primal, dangerous relationship humans have with nature through the harrowing, true story of Eric Murda. After a string of personal losses, Eric finds himself lost and vulnerable in the Florida wilderness. When his path crosses that of an alligator, a life-and-death struggle ensues, ultimately transforming Eric physically and spiritually. The episode not only documents his survival but delves into the emotional and existential journey that follows.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Precipice: Eric’s State of Mind and Backstory

Eric, struggling emotionally after losing his job, wife, and contact with his kids, had been living out of a van and spending nights on Florida beaches.
Collecting trash around the beach and nearby woods became his therapy, a way to distract from overwhelming pain and loss.
“For the first time in my life, I was completely alone. Definitely at a low point in my life.” (05:53)

2. Into the Woods: Seeking Escape

On July 17, after a string of small good fortunes (winning $50 on a found lottery ticket), he impulsively plunges deep into the woods, seeking a kind of escape from his internal turmoil.
Wounded and exhausted, Eric emerges at the edge of a lake, sees his van across the water, and decides to swim — an action filled with both desperation and hope.

3. The Alligator Encounter

Feeling relief at first in the water, Eric suddenly senses danger after spotting star patterns that remind him of an alligator (21:15)
As he floats, an alligator appears just a foot and a half away. After Eric tries to escape, the alligator attacks, clamping onto his right forearm.
- “The speed of the alligator was unbelievable. It struck like a snake.” (18:51)
A desperate struggle ensues:
- Eric tries to prevent the ‘death roll’ by holding the gator.
- He’s pulled underwater repeatedly, each time fearing he’ll drown.
- “It felt like I was coming up and down like a thousand times. I would swear that I died a thousand times. And it was like God was like, no, you’re not dying yet. Try this again.” (20:05)
Ultimately, the gator death-rolls, ripping off Eric’s arm below the elbow. In shock, he manages to swim back to shore, driven by pure adrenaline and terror.
- “I cannot believe I lost an entire arm. I cannot believe this.” (21:43)

4. Alone and Wounded in the Wild

Throughout the night and into the next day, Eric is tormented by despair but also by a stubborn will to live.
He attempts to signal a helicopter (25:33), but it doesn’t see him, forcing Eric to realize, “Ain’t nobody getting me out of this. I gotta do this myself.” (25:49)
Bloodied and exhausted, Eric chooses to walk along the water’s edge rather than back through the woods to avoid further harming his wound.

5. The Stalker Returns: A Second Encounter

As he inches along the shoreline, the alligator resurfaces and appears to stalk him, heightening the fear and urgency of escape (27:10)
“I believe this alligator is stalking me. At this point, maybe it figured I was no longer easy prey.” (28:29)

6. The Will to Survive: Following Signs

Eric survives another day and night by sleeping on a concrete block in the lake, following the sun and power lines for orientation through the endless swamp and thorns (35:09)
Despite exhaustion and agony, small details—a discarded beer bottle within the thicket—reignite his hope, signaling that he must be near a road (38:55)
- “When I seen the beer bottle, I knew I had to be close to a fence.” (39:38)

7. Escape and Rescue

Upon seeing a man near the road, Eric pushes himself through the last dense brush, screaming for help.
His first words: “Dude, I lost my arm to an alligator.” (41:26)
The man calls an ambulance. Eric, delirious but alive, finds grim humor in his naked, one-armed state.

8. Hospital and Healing

Eric undergoes further amputation due to infection (43:55)
Reunited with his kids, Eric tries to return to his playful self, adapting to his new reality:
- “When I finally got to see my kids... I tried to play some jokes with my nub on them.” (43:55)
On adapting and moving forward: “I pretty much came out in the same place that I went into the woods. It definitely felt full circle to come out in that spot.” (44:10)

9. Humor Amid Horror: Gator Bites

In hospital, Eric requests “gator bites,” fried alligator tail, joking with a friend—“I’m really not mad at the alligator, man…But I’m in the hospital with no arm from an alligator. I gotta have some gator bites.” (44:55)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Reflection on Humanity and Predators:
- Host Glynn Washington:
  “We tell that story like we’re the frog…But I keep thinking that we’re the ones who walk into the forest with the sharp sticks…So maybe we’re not the frog.” (02:39)
Nature’s Communion:
- Eric: “As I gazed into the alligator’s eye, the one eye I saw, it was yellow. I knew this was a dinosaur next to me.” (17:32)
On Choosing Life:
- “When you give yourself a good enough reason to give up, then go ahead and lay there. But until then, you might as well go ahead and try.” (25:33)
Spiritual Rebirth:
- “I consider me getting dunked underwater like a baptism by nature out there. Holy or unholy, whichever way you may look at it.” (44:06)
Gallows Humor in Recovery:
- “He asked me what I wanted to eat, and I was like, I want some gator bites… But I’m in the hospital with no arm from an alligator. I gotta have some gator bites.” (44:55)

Timestamps for Key Segments

Intro & Reflection on Human-Nature Conflict: 01:04–04:58
Eric's Backstory and Night on the Beach: 05:24–09:15
Into the Woods & Lost: 10:00–12:38
Decision to Swim, Alligator Attack: 13:45–22:00
Post-Attack, Surviving Night in Swamp: 22:31–25:00
Second Day, Helicopter Misses Rescue: 25:01–27:00
Second Alligator Encounter: 27:10–29:00
Survival Along the Lake & Hopeful Signs: 34:54–41:00
Rescue & Aftermath: 41:26–45:45
Final Reflections, Humor, and Recovery: 44:55–46:17

Episode Takeaways

Eric’s survival was as much mental as physical—a testament to human endurance and the life-saving potential of hope, memory, and even humor.
Through powerful personal storytelling, the episode interrogates the boundary between human and animal, the randomness and violence of nature, and the deep, unexpected lessons that emerge from tragedy.
The story ends on notes of transformation and reconciliation—Eric finding a new role as a motivational speaker and reconnecting with family.

For more information or to connect with Eric Murda, visit snapjudgment.org.

Original score by Nick Marks. Edited by Anna Sussman. Produced by Bo Walsh.

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Transcript

A (0:02)

SNAP Studios.

B (0:08)

Hi, I'm Saadia Khan, founder of Immigrantly Media, host of the Immigrantly podcast, social commentator, entrepreneur, and the person desperately trying to bring nuance back to immigrant identity. Five years and I've talked to over 300 guests from Grammy winner Ruja Aftab and comedian hari Kanubalu to Dr. Laurie Santos and NYC Mayor Sahram Hamzani to Basically, if they are interesting, curious, or slightly chaotic, they've probably been on the show. We dive into identity, belonging, culture, the messy, funny, complicated stuff that makes us human. And yes, the Guardian, CNN and Human Storyboard have all shown us love. New episodes drop every Tuesday, so grab your chai and your curiosity. This is Immigrantly, where we rewrite the immigrant narrative one story at a time.

A (1:04)

Stamp Judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states It's a new year and if you're like me, wellness goals are front and center. My partner in getting through though is Whole Foods Market because they feature an abundance of high quality multivitamins and probiotics and it's right next to smart meal shortcuts. To stay motivated. I can keep good habits by cooking homemade meals featuring sustainable wild caught sockeye salmon and other lean proteins. Even better, Whole Foods Market selection of non alcoholic beverages makes dry January a breeze. Shop all things wellness at Whole Foods Market. Okay, you know this fable? It's one of the oldest stories we have. One day the scorpion asks the frog if he can have a ride across the raging river. The frog agrees, and right when they get to the middle of the torrent, the scorpion bites the frog, dooming them both to the raging current. Why? Asked the frog. Why now we will both perish. You know, I had to serious the scorpion. It is my nature and we tell that story like we're the frog. Like we're reasonable, like we're trusting, betrayed by the other. But I keep thinking that we're the ones who walk into the forest with the sharp sticks. We're the ones who learned to set traps, to wait in blinds, to call animals toward us with their own voices. For 10,000 years we've been asking for a ride across the river and everything that said yes. We ate it, we wore it, we mounted it on our walls. So maybe we're not the frog and the Thing is, the animals, they know, at least the ones that survive know. Deep in the ancestral memory of a hawk or a wolf or an alligator lies a warning about us. About what happens when you let one of us get close. But sometimes, sometimes one of us wanders too far from the road, gets out past the fences into a place where we're not in charge anymore. When something that's been running from us, hiding from us for a hundred generations finally sees its chance. And then one day we find out today is that day. Snap Judgment proudly presents the Tooth and Claw Deep Dive Florida Alligator Man. Celebrating the tug of war between us and them, Manuslam, Washington, never crossed the river. When you're listening to Snap Judgment. Snap Snap's Tooth and Claw story begins in the state of Florida, Siesta Key to be exact. Where people from far and wide flock to its world famous beaches to relax in that cool, white, powdery sand. But of course, our Florida story has a Florida man. His name is Eric Murda. And for some time, Eric was having a hard time relaxing his mind. He's searching for a little bit of peace wherever he can find it. Today's story does contain graphic content, so sensitive listeners should be advised. Snap Judgment.

C (5:24)

I was sleeping in my van. Even though I had money and could get hotel rooms and things like that, I didn't see any reason, like once or twice a week to get a good night's sleep and a shower and things like that. I like to sleep on the beach. I would go out there and spend a whole night out there gazing at the stars. It's not real good sleep out there. It gets really cold. Believe it or not, I was on Siesta Beach. I had spent the night out there and I just kind of looked at it and was like, man, why would people come out on the beach and just like, leave trash? I've got nothing to do, so why not start picking up some garbage and helping clean up the earth? This gave me an opportunity to do my part with it. I was probably doing it two or three times a week for a couple hours at a time. You could call it therapeutic in a way. I would absolutely think about the children while I was picking up trash. I'm a father of seven kids. I've worked my entire life, you know, 50 to 60 hour work weeks, just totally balls to the walls, workaholic kind of guy. My ex and I, we struggled a lot through the years. And at this point in time, my ex had taken off, she had the children. So everything I knew was just absolutely demolished. For the first time in my life, I was like completely alone. Definitely at a low point in my life. Nobody to turn to, nothing to trust. And in an argument with the entire universe, like there wasn't a point for me to live. I had kids for all those years and a wife, and now all of a sudden, nothing. I mean, just trying to bring any kind of light into my dark world that I possibly could. So July 17, I spent the night on the beach. It's Sunday, you know, I actually got a smile on my face. I'm at the beach and I get a phone call from a client of mine up in Paris. I was doing sprinklers and landscape, mainly sprinklers, for about 25 years or so. I had just done some work at his house actually, and sure enough, his filter was leaking. And when I left his house in Paris, I came across this little dirt road that I've never really noticed before. I didn't spend a whole lot of time out that way. So I turned down the dirt road and they got this really cool little like shop there. Looks like a house kind of, but it's like a little convenience store right on the property. I go inside and when I come back out, there's a lotto ticket on the ground to scratch off. Scratch it off is a fifty dollar winner. I was like, dang, I've never found that before. So I took it in. Cash that in. Like, I'm having a great day, right? There was some people hanging out and stuff. I turn on some music, I start cleaning my van out. I was in a great mood, so let me do something good for these people. So I started picking up trash there. There was brush on the other side of the road opposite the fence. There's trash on the other side of it. The first steps, I was following trash into the woods and throwing it over the fence. I started making piles of trash back through the woods. The brush is so thick. I was literally pushing myself through there. And it's, you know, all oak trees, vines, thorns. You couldn't walk. There was no pathway or nothing like that. Just overgrown brush intertangled with each other. So I'm getting cut up already. I finally came to a big open area and I kept looking at them woods. I kept looking at them. I'm like, man, I want to go have some fun. I guess I just had a hankering for being in the woods. I was like, you know what? This trash stuff can wait. To hell with it. And I just took off running through the woods, Going into the woods that Day I had a lot of resentment for everything around me, including myself. A lot of regret. Wish I did this right, wish I didn't do this wrong. When you're going through something that intense as losing your children, losing your whole life, I think I blamed myself too much. I think I was trying to release myself from reflecting on that because that was all that was ever on my mind. Very tough, very depressing. I was trying to escape that stuff. Like I'd rather endure some physical pain. Like I'm trying to get rid of the rest of that pain. I got so far into there and I didn't know how to get out. I was cut from a head to toe. I couldn't see anything. I'm like, do I keep going or do I turn around? I figured if I kept going, I would eventually find like another open area or something like that, that I wouldn't be getting cut up anymore. I had come so far through it. I'm like, man, it's got to be closer to keep going. I wandered around for roughly another three hours or so. I didn't really know where I was going or what I was doing. I seen some really tall grasses that I knew grew alongside of lakes, so I knew there was water there. And at this point, I'm just absolutely dying of thirst. It hurts to walk. So then I pushed myself through the grasses. That's when I came out to the waterside. When I was standing there, I could see my van. I was just so cut up and I was in so much pain. I was so happy to see my van. I knew it was about 8, 30, 9 o' clock at night because the sun was almost down, but it wasn't completely down. I knew I was running out of time and I didn't want to be in those woods. I felt like I could swim across there in like 30, 40 minutes and basically just make it before it got dark. I just do it. Just make it. So I decided to go ahead and get into the water. I just think about how much pain I'm in. That water is going to feel so good on all of these cuts. Oh my God. I can drink the water too. As I'm swimming, all my problems are solved. Like the whole world just came together. Oh my goodness. The distance between where my van was and where I was getting in the lake was like a mile and a half. I felt really confident in my ability to be able to make it across my first steps into the lake. I had already taken my boots off. I stepped into the water barefoot with my Boots in my hand and tried to swim like that. At first, I was taking strokes with them in my hand, and they're soaking wet. They were just so heavy. They're, like dragging me down while I'm trying to hold them. The boots were a representation of my work, so I grabbed onto those things like they were my life. I refused to let them go. And I was like, man, you're gonna drown if you don't. You know, I'm having this big internal struggle. So I dropped the boots. I'm continuing on, and I'm swimming and still struggling. The pants are weighing me down. And I was like, man, I'm not dropping these pants. My identification is in my wallet. Eventually, I had to drop the pants. Once all that was gone, it was pretty easy to swim. When I was finally naked in the water and the water was deep enough to where I wasn't kicking sticks and things like that, physically, I was relaxed. As I began to swim, my van was getting closer and closer and closer. And until I hit a certain point, every time I look up, it was basically in the same place. I don't want to say it was getting further away, but, you know, when it's not getting closer, it's getting further. Now I'm stuck in this current in the middle of the lake, and no matter what I was doing, I would come back where I felt like the same exact spot. I felt like I was swimming in circles. I felt stuck. I didn't know what I was going to do. How the heck am I going to get out of here? It was just like, all right, keep you cool, man. You'll get out of this. You get yourself out of all kinds of crap in your life. If you start panicking, you are going to drown. So, yeah, just stay cool. I'm just, like, kind of hanging out, floating on my back and swimming around. And I was just like, the heck with it, man. I'm gonna. I'm gonna hang out and save my energy for right now, and we'll get this figured out. As I'm floating on my back and gazing up at the stars, I see these three stars triangulated. And I was like, that's kind of cool. And I was like, son of a gun, that looks like an alligator. I was just so relaxed and trying to kind of do my thing so that I could last in that water. But when I did see those stars and they remind me of an alligator, I did take it as a sign. You know, the cosmos has a way of speaking to you sometimes. That's When I came to realization there could be one really close. And sure enough, when I flipped over on my stomach, there was an alligator a foot and a half away from me. I could see his eye and part of his snout above the water. As I gazed into the alligator's eye, the one eye that I saw, it was yellow. I knew this was a dinosaur next to me. There was no mistaking it was a big lizard. I took off swimming immediately. I mean, the second I seen that eye, it was like one motion and me moving so fast made the alligator go ahead. And he struck my right forearm just as the tip of my fingers would, touching the water. The speed of the alligator was unbelievable. It struck like a snake. Right away, it clamped down. When the teeth went into me, it's like, really? It didn't hurt that bad. Like, not like what you would think it would. I was like, damn, there's teeth in my arm. At that point, out of pure instinct, I rolled over and grabbed the alligator with my other arm to try to stop them from doing the death row. They start spinning around to kill their prey or snap limbs. I was gripping the alligator as tightly as I could. My arm barely fit around the alligator, and I did get a piece of his underbelly. It wasn't slimy. It was kind of rough, like leathery. What happened next? Because I was holding onto the ribs of the alligator, it tried to take me underwater. And then the alligator began to try to drown me. The first time the alligator took me underwater, all I knew to do was keep kicking. I wasn't underneath the water for, you know, more than 5, 5, 6 seconds at a time. Even though it was only seconds, it felt like an eternity. I was feeling like I was gonna drown at that point. I'm underneath there, suffocating. I'm back up above the water, and I'm back underneath. Like, the second I could get a breath. When I would push the alligator up from the water after being under, it wasn't but a half a second of being able to catch my breath. It felt like I was coming up and down like a thousand times. I would swear that I died a thousand times. And it was like, God was like, no, you're not dying yet. Try this again. Try this again. Try this again. So the alligator pulled me under three times, and on the third time, my hand slipped off of the ribs of the alligator and it was able to death roll. And it. Because my arm was already snapped backwards, it ripped the flesh off and was able to take from my elbow down. I remember everything Turning black for a millisecond, the alligator just kind of vanished. I don't know if he went underwater. My first thought was like, that arm's gone. I knew that was definitely done with that. It threw me in a serious state of paranoia. Once it was gone, it was gone. There was no question about it. And I didn't see any blood. I didn't see anything. Like, by this time, it's like 11:30 at night. It's pitch dark out. There's no street lights where I'm hanging out at. I was in the wrong part of town. After the alligator took off with my arm, I turned around and began to swim to the shore that I came from. I started heading that way and actually making headway. I'm kicking and swimming and worried about the alligator coming up from behind me. I was on pure adrenaline, swimming with one arm for the first time and losing my arm just like 10 seconds before. All I'm thinking in my head is, oh, my God, my arm is gone. At this point is when it's actually setting in that I lost an arm. I'm like, I cannot believe I lost an entire arm. I cannot believe this. And I gotta get back, back here. How am I going to get out of here? I just kept looking forward, trying to get out of there, scared out of my mind, paddling as hard as I could and thinking the alligators coming up behind me the whole time. It took me about a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes to get back to where I came from. As I hit the edge of the water and I pushed through some of these grasses, I wanted to get as far away from that water as I possibly could. I was just in survival mode that just. Man, you got to get away from this water and you got to get away from this water now. You already lost one arm. You don't want to lose another arm. I was worried about a lot of other body parts, too. It wasn't just my arm. I had to push back through some grasses and. And I found an opening with a tree stump about 8 foot tall or so. And I remember laying there. It's like at this point, probably midnight, maybe one o' clock at night, and I'm laying there, just waiting to see the grass start parting and the alligator coming through the swamp and through those grasses. Very unsettling. Eventually, I caught my breath. I was still in a heck of a lot of pain, if you can imagine, Just having the worst, nastiest cut you've ever had and the air blowing on it. If I haven't bled out yet and I lost like half of my arm. Then I'm not going to bleed out. I had a really hard time to even calm myself down enough to actually go to sleep. Exhaustion, fatigue. It finally did set in. I was at the tree stump less than an hour before I ended up passing out.

C (25:01)

That night after falling asleep, I slept for 10 to 11 hours. When I woke up in the morning, around 11 o' clock or so, I laid there still for a little while, just wanting to die. To be honest with you, it was like, you know, the kids are gone, my wife's gone, business is gone. Now that I lost my arm, I've got nothing to really live for, like, I had nobody that had to depend on me anymore, you know, I'm a provider by nature. I always have been. So now there's nobody to provide for. There's nobody depending on me. There's nobody that needs me. I'm not speaking with anybody at all. I'm so by myself that I find myself in this position. They ain't even gonna know what happened to me. Who knows how long it's gonna be before anybody even notices I'm gone? I don't talk to anybody, you know. And then I was like, I'm just gonna give up. And the next question came, why? And I said, well, I don't really know. And I answered to myself, when you give yourself a good enough reason to give up, then go ahead and lay there. But until then, you might as well go ahead and try. You get. You don't even know why you wouldn't give up, you know? I decided I was gonna go deal with it. As I looked up, I seen the helicopter coming. The only thing I knew to do was try to wave it down. I shimmied up the stump as fast as I possibly could, and I stood at the top of the stump. The helicopter is pretty much directly above me. And I'm waving my hand and screaming at just kept going. And that's when I realized, ain't nobody getting me out of this. I gotta do this myself if I wanna get out of this. I gotta do this myself. It did motivate me to get moving. Like, it's time to go now. We have to get up. We have to go and start pushing. You're never going to get out of here like this, just sitting here. You've made the choice to live. So no guarantees that you're getting out anyway. Sooner you start, the faster this is going to happen. I decided I was going to go try to push myself back through the woods. It didn't take a whole lot to deter me from that couple of sticks just kind of jabbing right into the open wound. And I was. I said, I cannot do this. There's just no way. I can't get through those woods like that. I gotta get back in the water. That's gonna be my only way. I did not want to get back in that water. I mean, this is my first day with no arm. Even though I slept pretty heavy, I'm still drained. I'm still worn out and I'm scared to death. I'm overlooking that water. I'm looking for alligators. I'm like, man, I can't go back in the woods. So my plan was to shimmy along the edge all the way around the lake. It's like a jungle surrounding a lake. I was probably a good 15ft out from the shore. That was the closest to the shore I could possibly walk due to debris and sticks, overgrowth, things like that. And it was like the roots had made a shelf. And I'm right on the edge of that, and it's got kind of, like slimy mud, so I'm, like, sliding down it as I'm trying to keep my one arm out of the water because I didn't want it to be infected. And I got my other arm grabbing on the grasses and branches and things that'll break. But it was the only thing I had to hold on to. As I'm walking the shelf. I turn around, and within a couple hundred feet, here's a celigator that is definitely watching me. As far as I'm concerned, it was the same one. AKA came back for more. It wanted to eat some more, knew I was injured, knew what it tasted like, and came back for second helpings. Doing my best to get through there, but obviously I'm frightened. It ended up submerging itself, and alligators can stay underwater for quite some time. I just continued doing what I was doing. There was nothing else I could do except be brave about it, Keep that fear in the back of my mind and keep moving. And then at some point, it decided to come back up, and that's when I saw the second sign. I believe this alligator is stalking me. At this point, maybe it figured I was no longer easy prey. So I was literally stuck in this lake a day after the alligator took my arm. With the alligator watching me as I struggled to walk through, I was certainly looking over my shoulder. Obviously, you want to know if something's about to attack you or not, but I had to choose. In between focusing energy on that and turning around with one arm on a slippery slope, or keep going and get out of there as fast as I could. And, you know, the best choice was to just turn my back and keep going. My main focus was get the heck on out of this water. I felt like I could walk that whole shoreline and get back to my van before it got dark out. I hadn't even really thought exactly what I'm gonna tell the kids. How do you approach a situation like that? A father that they've grown up with, lifting them and holding them and hugging them? I was always like a jungle gym to the kids. I'm that dad, I'm on the swings with them. I'm going down the slide with them. I'm playing with them on the playground. I am that fun. Dad. We all like to feel like we're needed, especially by our children. And that's where I'm supposed to be at in my life, and my kids are supposed to need me, and I needed them. I definitely felt when I was in there, if I made it out, that everything was going to change. With me becoming a handicap and going through all of this, my mental state's going to change. My whole way of looking at the world's going to change, change. And I'm gonna get my kids back no matter what. That's 99% of why I'm probably getting through this and why I am surviving. Whether I knew it or not, the kids were a huge drive. I never lost hope in my life before. Hope is a son of a gun. It's getting dark out, and I'm only about maybe halfway to where I really wanted to be. But I wasn't going to be in that water at night again. That's what I did know. And I come across this big concrete block in the water, maybe part of a dam or something, and crawled up onto that, and I fell asleep for a little bit. I woke up afraid of the alligator. I mean, I'm literally still on the lake. It's now daylight out, so I've been stuck in the water for the entire day and the entire night, and I'm just trying to find my way out of these grasses. I feel like I'm going in circles. And I looked up at the sun and decided I was gonna just follow the sun. The grasses are so high, you can't see through them. I can't see straight. The only thing I could see was the sky. So I was looking up quite a bit. There were power lines there. When I saw the power lines, it gave me hope that I can find a way out of here, that I don't have to walk in circles any longer. All I knew is I got to get from point A to point B. I need to make sure I'm walking the same way. I know eventually them power lines are powering something. There's a street out there. There's something.

C (34:54)

So, as I followed these power lines for quite some time, I did eventually find some dry land to come onto. However, now it's a wooded area, thick with thorns, vines. This brush is so thick here, you can't even see through it. And those thorns were just so overgrown. There was no other alternative. I had nowhere else to go. I'm cut, torn to shreds. I've been like this for a couple of days now. I just absolutely hurt. And the thought of getting stuck in my open flesh with thorns on top of slicing my body up even more by trying to crawl through here, it was just like, you know, slowly get yourself through it, get pricked as little as possible. I had absolutely no choice but to go through this wall of thorns. So I entered, trying to cover up my wound the best I can. It was pretty thick to where I had to go underneath branches, getting hit by thorns, and I was laying there, grabbing branches and pulling myself, just dragging myself underneath on my back, face up, literally inches at a time. I don't know how else I would have got through them, though, either. It was excruciating. I was so sick of being in pain. And I think the only escape I had from that pain was screaming at the top of my lungs. The only thing I really had out there was my voice. I screamed pretty much the whole time out there. I mean, at the top of my lungs, like, just screaming, screaming, hoping somebody would hear me, hoping to keep animals away. It got to that point where all I wanted to do was take a break. I move a few feet and take a break. I'd move a few feet, take another break. There was one point in time where I sat still for at least a half an hour, and I was dumbfounded. I had no. No way to get through this wall of thorns. There's no way to go under it. There was no way to go above it. I'm basically covered in thorns, and that's all I can see around me and trying to figure out, like, how am I going to get out of here? I'm laying there on my back, absolutely stuck, no way out. I was just so dang exhausted, and I just didn't want to get up anymore. I didn't want my arm to go through that anymore either. I didn't want to do it, that there was no way to motivate me except, you got nothing else to do. You came all this way. You're gonna lay hands, die now, really, you've got to be getting closer. You've got to be getting closer. This is not the time to give up. You have to be getting closer. I decided I wanted to live basically because I'm stubborn, you know, I didn't just go through all of that. It would have been so easy to just lay there and die. Honest to God, I don't even know how much pain I would have felt. I was still in the thick of the brush. I was actually on my stomach. I just looked at it. It was a glass bottle in the mud, filled with mud. I had to pull it out. I immediately knew it was a beer bottle somebody littered there. When I seen the beer bottle, I knew I had to be close to a fence. I couldn't be but, like, 15, 20ft away. People can't throw beer that far into the woods. Like, there's too much vegetation and nobody in their right mind is going to crawl back there. It just didn't make any sense. I knew it was thrown there. So that did give me my last little burst of energy to know for a fact that, listen, a road has to be close. After seeing the beer bottle, it took me quite some time to even make the next 10ft. It felt like I was trapped in a dome. Like, these woods are not letting me go till I make it all the way out. Once I made it those 10 to 15ft, I could see the fence. I push on and push on, and sure enough, there's a guy on the same road not far from my van, not far from my van at all. And I see him. I'm like screaming. And as far as I can tell, he can't hear me screaming. Looks like he's getting ready to get in his car and take off. And I'm not very far away from him. And when I seen him go to try to enter his vehicle is when I stood up and I had a really pushed myself. Really, really pushed myself to make it these next 20ft. And I'm screaming and screaming the whole way. Hey, hey, hey. And the guy looks into the woods finally and says, what are you doing back there? He seen me, but he didn't see my arm missing. And my exact words were, dude, I lost my arm to an alligator. And he said, holy shit. And then he asked me if he could get me anything. I was like, I want some water. I want a clean bottle of water. This guy gets me a couple bottles of water. And I drank both of them pretty quickly, too. It tasted like I was saved. With me being able to finally relax, I just laid there and closed my eyes. I Broke out in the laughter and was like, I cannot believe I just made it through all that shit. Like, this is unbelievable that this happened to me and I actually made it out. Oh, my God, I'm naked. You know, like, man, I'm naked. I'm naked with one arm. He called the ambulance. Of course, the helicopter ended up landing not far from where my van was. They came, they cut the fence, pulled me out, and it was brand new. Birthed into the same old world. I pretty much came out in the same place that I went into the woods. It definitely felt full circle to come out in that spot. The whole thing is very emotional, spiritual experience. I consider me getting dunked underwater like a baptism by nature out there. Holy or unholy, whichever way you may look at it. And as a new type of birth, it's the way I see things. Like, everything happens for a reason. It's coming back out into the world as a whole new human being. After the helicopter lands at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, I meet the doctor, and I believe within, like, five minutes, I'm out. Like, whatever. They gave me anesthesia, put me out, and I wake up, and I'm missing another. Like, at least another quarter of my arm. What had happened, you know, after all those days out in the swamp and the water, bacteria in the soil, infections, it just. It ate so much of my arm that he had to take the whole thing. After the operation, I was laying in the hospital bed. All I wanted to do was see my kids at this point, you know, it was why I survived, I think. You know, kids are everything. Even though they could survive without me and they didn't need their dad. I'm sure they like having him around, and I like being around them. When I finally got to see my kids, I'm looking at the kids like they're not really knowing how to react to dad. Like, been, like, you know, probably four, four and a half weeks since we've seen each other. So all the excitement's there. I tried to play some jokes with my nub on them. They wanted to see it. They definitely wanted to see it. Daddy, let me see your arm. Daddy, let me see your. My junior, My little Eric. He runs up to me, and I grab him, and I start swinging him around with one arm and just having a good old time with him like I would with two, you know, don't drop the baby. You know, I did almost drop him, but, yeah, he wanted to climb. He wanted to play. He wanted to do what me and him do.