An incredible story of survival.
A Tampa man was swimming in a lake. He says he was shooting a video for his adventure company when he was attacked by a 12-foot alligator.
Juan Carlos la Verde, aka "JC Defeats," tells WFLA-TV, “I felt the equivalent of a telephone pole hit my face and then because of my stroke, I felt the scales, then I felt the teeth, so I knew what I was in,”
““I felt the equivalent of a telephone pole hit my face and then because of my stroke, I felt the scales, then I felt the teeth, so I knew what I was in,” he said.
JC Defeats was inside a 12-foot gator’s mouth for several seconds. The force of the gator’s mouth crushed part of his skull and broke his jaw.
“It was just one large bite,” he said. “I heard my jaw snap and I just continued swimming.”
By some miracle, the gator released JC Defeats. He swam to a nearby dock.”
He spent 10 days in the hospital after undergoing a six-hour surgery. He has multiple bone fractures in his jaw, underwent a craniectomy and doctors removed part of his right temporal lobe.”
Wow.
His wife calls him a “walking miracle”