Diver Nearly Loses Arm After Alligator Pins Him to River Bottom

A diver in South Carolina is lucky to not just be alive, but to have survived with all his limbs intact after a harrowing alligator attack earlier this month.

Will Georgitis was scuba diving for fossils in the Cooper River near Goose Creek, SC on April 15 when he spotted several large fossilized shark teeth. However, with only about 10 minutes of air remaining in his tank, he was forced to pause his mission and surface. That's when he saw the gator swimming straight for him.

"It made a beeline right at me," Georgitis later told Charleston's Post and Courier. The massive reptile proceed to chomp down on his forearm from his wrist to his elbow.

Before the gator could execute a "death roll," the name for the spinning maneuver alligators use to subdue and dismember their prey, Georgitis managed to wrap his free arm and legs around its body and he attempted to stab it in the eye with a screwdriver he uses for fossil hunting. But instead, the apex predator shook him "like a rag doll" and dove to the bottom of the river, which reaches depths of about 50 feet, and pinned him down with its body weight.

As he recounted to Good Morning America, after his scuba tank ran out of air, he attempted to tear off his own arm in a desperate plea for survival. But miraculously, the gator lost its grip and he was able to break free and make it to the surface, where a friend waiting in a boat helped him out of the water.

#Alligator in Charleston grabs diver in nightmare tale of survival. Wow. It's amazing Will Georgitis lived to tell this.https://t.co/9WdAFywiUf pic.twitter.com/8sSnoEAHq1

— X_Christine_X (@AnfelisaSpiorad) April 20, 2024

Even more incredibly, Georgitis suffered only one broken bone in his lower right arm, which surgeons repaired with a metal plate held in place with nine screws. He also required a "ton" of staples where his flesh had been ripped apart by the gator's teeth. All things considered, he's facing a six month recovery with the possibility of additional surgical procedures.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) is planning to send a team to search for the gator. But it's unlikely they will be able to identify the exact animal that attacked Georgitis unless his screwdriver left visible wounds.

"The SCDNR has received a report of an individual receiving a non-fatal bite from an alligator while scuba diving on the Cooper River," the agency said in a statement. "Details are not available at this time, and the incident is under investigation."

Alligator attacks in South Carolina are rare, with fatalities even rarer, although at least four people have been killed in the state this decade, including a death last July. Even Georgitis admitted that he had dove in that spot 30 or 40 times in his six years of fossil hunting, but had never had an issue before now. Yet, he now wants to make other divers aware of the danger that lurks below the surface.