If I was one of the paramedics working the scene, I could have not stopped laughing!
911 call led cops to victim of alligator
Carlos Mayid couldn't see Adrian Apgar being attacked by an alligator early Wednesday, but he could hear him.With his cell phone in hand and a sheriff's operator on the line, a calm Mayid left his home near Lake Parker and walked down his street in the pre-dawn darkness toward the screams of a man who was fighting for his life in the water.
In the recording of a dramatic 911 call released Thursday, Mayid is heard breathing heavily and walking through wet grass as Apgar's repeated cries grow louder. Finally, he got close enough to yell back.
"Hey. What's up? What do you need?" Mayid hollered.
"A gator's got me," Apgar replied, his voice faint in the background.
Mayid's call shortly after 4 a.m. sent four Polk County deputies racing to the 2,150-acre lake north of U.S. Highway 92 just outside Lakeland, where they jumped into the water and literally wrenched Apgar's arm from the gator's mouth. The victim, who told authorities he had passed out nude on the shore after smoking crack cocaine, was rushed to a hospital in critical condition.
Later Wednesday, state wildlife authorities trapped and killed a nearly 12-foot-long alligator thought to be the one that attacked Apgar, who remained today in Lakeland Regional Medical Center. His family asked that his condition not be released.
Mayid's call was picked up by a sleepy-sounding operator, Josh Fulman.
"There's a guy screaming bloody murder over here, 'Help' in front of the Moose Lodge," Mayid said. He could not be reached Thursday to elaborate on his experience.
"I can hear him
from inside my house. . . . He's screaming 'Help, help, help, help.' "From the time Mayid finally talked with Apgar, a dramatic back-and-forth relay followed with Mayid serving as the middleman between victim and operator.
Fulman told Mayid that deputies were on the way, but there was little the two could do. Meanwhile, Apgar kept screaming.
The tension built.
Replying to a plea from Apgar that was inaudible on the tape, Mayid said, "I ain't going over there. I can't go in there anyway. . . . I don't know how the hell they're going to get through."
Mayid ended up getting close enough to repeatedly ask Apgar what body part the alligator had, yelling, "Help is on the way; help is on the way."
About five minutes into the nearly eight-minute call, Fulman suggested Mayid tell Apgar to punch the alligator. "I don't know if it's true, but if you punch him in the nose . . . it may let him go," he said.
Mayid relayed the message and immediately came back with Apgar's response: "Too big."
There was an audible sigh.
Said Mayid, "He says he needs a gun."
Polk County deputies arrived about two minutes later and soon reached Apgar in the water. He was naked, slumped over in the alligator's jaws in chest-deep water on the east side of Lake Parker.
After a "tug-of-war" match with the gator, three deputies and their sergeant were able to rescue Apgar and carry him to shore. The entire rescue took about 20 minutes.
Apgar told the deputies he had been smoking crack cocaine and fell asleep on the shore when the alligator attacked him. The area includes a strip of land with a picnic table.
But local and state officials said Thursday that they don't know whether Apgar was on the land or already in the water when he was attacked. Said Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, "We don't know what happened."
Sheriff's officials have said Apgar, 45, of Polk City suffered a broken right arm. His left arm was nearly severed, hanging by a tendon, and he had bites to his buttocks and leg. He was in critical condition and underwent surgery Wednesday afternoon at Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
Morse said the 11-foot-9-inch, 600-pound alligator trapped several hours after the attack had been euthanized, a necessary step to protect the public.
The alligator was "much larger" than average, Morse said.
Investigators aren't positive the captured alligator was the one that attacked Apgar, but they think it is the likely culprit because it was the only gator feeding in that area.
They did not perform a necropsy on the animal because Apgar is not missing limbs.
"Everybody who comes in contact with that alligator is at risk," Morse said. "Alligators don't normally attack people. When they do, something is amiss."
Listen to the 911 call here
