Remember This - It May Save Your Life Out Detecting

Something you don't think about much while you are out metal detecting in Florida, with headphones on and a hum in your ear, poking along the river's edge for coins and artifacts, is death. Your death in particular. Good grief, Jim, what an unpleasant thing to say! I was so relaxed and enjoying...!!! Indeed you were...exactly the same state of mind you were in on your day off, out metal detecting the freshwater lakes, rivers and marshes of Florida. Something you have not noticed in your elevator-music world, however, is that a creature whose genus has existed for the last 65 million years has noticed you. The reminder comes with a screaming burning pain, as the last living member of the dinosaurs, the alligator, grabs your leg!

"I was going for the leg...dang!"  

You quickly pull out your iPhone and search for the "STOP GATOR!" app, through the blinding pain, which of course does not now and will never exist...at least on the iPhone 6 anyway. You've wasted precious seconds as the big lizard clamps his 3,000 pounds-per-square inch jaws even tighter on you leg and drags you backward toward the dark water and your gruesome, still pending, death. Gators historically kill you by drowning you then stuffing your lunchtime-goodness under an old log or embankment to get ripe. At this point, you are scared and in pain, maybe even going into shock, but we are talking about your life here; not a Patriots game on ESPN! It's the end of everything you know and are and ever will be...and don't forget those expensive metal detectors you recently bought...you've hardly read the manuals yet!!! You have, by now, miserably failed alligator basic training rule #1, and that is to RUN as soon as you spot an alligator coming out of the water toward you...don't stop to pick up your pin-pointer, or your digger...I mean RUN like the devil himself or your ex-wive's lawyer is behind you, and zig-zag a bit on the way out...for your children and your children's children sake RUN! 

Now, having been nabbed and in it's jaws, you need to get Rule #2 locked and loaded, which is to grab a rock, or the heel of the boot on you foot that is free, and slam the alligator as hard as possible on the nose...their snoot is rather sensitive, like a shark's, and a good hard slam may get it to open it's mouth and release you. Rule #3 is to get a stick or a finger into it's eye...blinding it is painful and again it might let you go. Since you ignored #1, run away, and while #2 and #3 didn't seem to work , Rule #4 is to poke your fingers into it's nostrils and cut off it's breathing. Alligators do most of their breathing through the nostrils and it is a distinct shock to them not to be able to draw a breath. It will need to open it's mouth to breath. At which point rule #1 comes back into play and you RUN!!! The last trick, fingers in it's nostrils was utilized by a 10-year old girl who was grabbed by a 17-foot alligator in Moss Park, Orlando, Florida in 2017. It let her go and she got away, Later in the hospital she said she had remembered an alligator trainer at GATORLAND had mentioned if they were ever attacked by an alligator, plugging it's nose was a good way to get it to let you go.

The main point, in addition to these techniques, is to not panic and NEVER stop fighting...kicking screaming jamming it's eyes, nostrils and nose may cause it to let you go...you may be just too much trouble for it's lunch or dinner when a fish would do. My wife says if you'd like to see an example of what kind of fight you should put up, see the movie "Atomic Blonde," she says you'll figure it out.

Gator Fighting Video...a good "fighting" example anyway

Be safe, be aware and remember these techniques if the worst should happen...remember the Boy Scouts of America motto : Be prepared! It can and will save your life. Cheers!