Florida woman survives attack by punching 400-pound alligator

MIAMI - A Florida woman needed emergency surgery to save her leg after she was attacked by an alligator while swimming near her home.

Rachél Thompson lives in Temple Terrace, near Tampa. On July 4, the woman said she finished a early morning run and went into her backyard for a dip in the Hillsborough River

"I'm basically standing in shallow water and I look into the dark water and out of nowhere appear the ripples of a giant alligator head," Thompson, who still needs to stay off her feet, recounted.

The gator attacked her, biting her leg. Thompson said she punched it in its snout.

"The thought came to my mind 'This is your last move and the next is his, next to roll you' and I just screamed and I pried as hard as I could," she said.

Thompson eventually got away, pulling herself up onto a dock. A licensed trapper removed the alligator from the river, it weighed more than 400 pounds and measured 10 feet and eight inches in length. The gator was euthanized.

The woman was taken to the hospital where she spent three days after her surgery.

"None of the major nerves were severed. One clean fracture to the fibula, the small bone," she said.

Thompson is expected to make a full recovery.

"I have a lot of scars and it's amazing the more that you get in life, the more you realize people don't pick up on them, they don't notice them. I think this one might be different. I think this one might be a bit more noticeable," she said.

State wildlife officials say serious injuries caused by alligators are rare in Florida . They urge people to never feed an alligator, not only is it dangerous, it's illegal.