COZUMEL, Mexico — This story was originally published on MyNorthwest.com
One minute, he was enjoying a swim. The next, his right arm was in a crocodile’s mouth.
A 72-year-old Richland man is telling his story of survival during a recent scuba diving trip in Cozumel, Mexico.
In an interview with the Tri-City Herald, Eric Greager said it was the “most surprising thing” that had ever happened to him.
“He lunged at me, and as I tried to block him, my right arm wound up in his mouth, which immediately clamped down and started thrashing back and forth like a dog with a rag toy,” he said. “Meanwhile, with my other hand, I’m beating him in the head and kicking him in the stomach and yelling and screaming, and he went into the death roll and started to take me down to the bottom.”
That would be the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
Emergency response, surgery save arm after vicious attack in Caribbean
The crocodile eventually let go and swam away. Fellow beachgoers helped get him out of the water and onto the shore, where they applied a tourniquet, which he said saved his arm — and probably his life.
An ambulance took him to the hospital, where doctors went to work.
“Grabbed several of the doctor’s hands and asked them to please save my arm, and they said they were going to try,” he told the Herald.
The crocodile severed an artery and all the tendons in his arm.
Surgeons repaired that damage.
“The lucky part was the two main nerves that were exposed but were not severed, and no bones were broken,” he said.
Greager spent three days in the hospital. As of Friday, there were no signs of infection.
“It’s going to be a long road to recovery, but I’m going to get there,” he said. “Thank you to all the people who have helped me along the way, between the beach, the ambulance ride, the nurses, the doctors, all the people who have responded in a supportive way to the Facebook post I put out, and just on and on. The kindness of people has been amazing.”
Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.
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