10-foot alligator attacks man trying to rescue it; how he got away is amazing

An alligator, like one that attacked a man in Mississippi last week, is pictured here. The victim managed to escape the iron jaws of the gator , which can act like a steel trap and rip an arm off completely. The incident  happened on a Mississippi highway as the victim was trying to help relocate the reptile.

Credit: Joe Raedle

Credit: Joe Raedle

An alligator, like one that attacked a man in Mississippi last week, is pictured here. The victim managed to escape the iron jaws of the gator , which can act like a steel trap and rip an arm off completely. The incident  happened on a Mississippi highway as the victim was trying to help relocate the reptile.

A Mississippi man is thankful because he has both arms and legs and he’s not in a hospital after a potentially deadly encounter with a massive alligator.

The man was helping authorities - who were trying to relocate a 10-foot-long gator weighing a couple hundred pounds that was blocking a highway in Hancock County last week - when the victim just got too close to the reptile, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The gator suddenly grabbed an arm and wrestled the man to the road, rolling him over before the victim managed to escape when the beast opened its mouth.

A warning here. The video is graphic, but the man escaped with non-life-threatening injuries.

An alligator expert said the victim was lucky he got away from the beast at all.

"They got 220 per square inch of biting power. So, generally if they get a good bite they're going to crush bone and all," Gulf Coast Gator Ranch owner Allan Adams told the Post-Dispatch.

“They could actually tear your arm clean off,” Adams said.

Adams said alligator attacks are rare in Mississippi.

"You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting bit by an alligator. You really have to put yourself in a bad decision to get bit by an alligator," he said.