GATOR ATTACK Hero husband saves wife from 8ft alligator in brutal tug-of-war after attack left her hand hanging off
Her husband revealed how she was ‘violently taken underwater’ by the animal
A WOMAN’S life was saved during an alligator attack thanks to her heroic husband’s actions.
Florida optometrist Amber Perren came “eye-to-eye” with the 8ft beast while on the St. Lucie River in Marion County on July 23.
The 27-year-old had been wading in the water with the couple’s dog when the alligator attacked and clamped onto her arm and dragged her underwater.
Now, weeks after the attack which left her arm hanging off with shattered bones and a mangled hand, Amber has spoken out about how her husband’s heroic actions saved her life.
Kelby Galen Perren had previously told cops how he’d heard his wife’s screams and saw her be “violently taken under the water” by the animal and that when he pulled her up, “the alligator was still attached to her arm”.
He has since told WPTV how he ended up in a brutal tug-of-war with the reptile.
“I ran in and just grabbed her. I pulled her back, the gator pulled back, and I pulled her again, and she came loose,” he said.
“I keep saying he’s my hero, and he saved me,” Amber added.
She explained how she had only been sitting the water, which was only about two feet deep, for a couple of minutes when the attack took place.
“I leaned back to wet my hair in the two-feet of water, and as I came up from wetting my hair, that’s when the gator got me,” she recalled.
“I saw the gator’s head, eye to eye. My mind was to get away, get away.
“I was just punching his head, and I was trying to run.”
After her husband’s heroics, Amber was taken to the trauma center at HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital suffering from lacerations and fractures.
The gator attack left her with two broken bones in her forearm and a severed artery.
“My hand was just hanging,” Amber said.
She has undergone five surgeries and several skin grafts and has not regained full movement of her hand which is still numb in a number of places.
The gator was captured and killed after the attack with Amber saying she plans to hand the skull up in her office at Amber Eyes Optical.
Despite the gruesome ordeal, she is adamant that it won’t stop her from going in the water in future.
While she wont return to that part of the lake, she said, “if his showed us anything, it showed us how quickly your life can change in a matter of seconds, so you should go have fun.”
Meanwhile, a mother-of-three who moved to Alaska this summer was mauled by a bear and dragged from her home after going for a jog.
Ariean Fabrizio Colton from Kenai, Alaska, has been left with severe injuries after the attack last week.
She was found bleeding heavily in the woods by a concerned local who heard the mauling and thought a bear had got a dog.