Teen Girl Fights Off 10-Foot Gator At FL Creek: Reports

OKALOOSA COUNTY, FL — A 15-year-old girl who took on a nearly 10-foot alligator after being bitten at Pond Creek near Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle is safe, media reports say.

Summer Hinote said she was in waist-deep water with her friends when the alligator snuck up behind her and grabbed her leg, CBS News reported.

She began punching the alligator before letting go, only to re-grab her and take her underwater, she told both WSVN and CBS News. The alligator then "shook (her) around," CBS News reported.

When Hinote eventually broke free and inquired about if she still had her leg, she was told, "... 'you're fine, you're fine, it's not that bad but you have to get up. He's coming up from behind you'," she told CBS News.

Carrying Hinote, her friends were able to get her to the top of a bank, where they reportedly called her mother.

“I get a phone call, because one of her friends made it to where they had service, ‘Summer’s been bit by an alligator’, all I needed to (here), I left just like I am right now, jumped in my truck, 911,” Hinote's mother told WSVN.

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Hinote was ultimately taken to meet first responders, WSVN reported.

Everglades Holiday Park offers tips for encountering and avoiding an alligator.

Alligators live in all of Florida's 67 counties, according to wildlife officials on the FWC website.

Florida's rise in inhabited waterfront homes and water-related activities increases the chance of human-alligator interactions, they added.

Residents should keep their distance and not feed alligators, while pets should be on a leash and not near water, wildlife officials said.

Swimmers should solely swim in designated areas during daylight, the FWC said.

According to park officials, Florida is home to about 1.25 million alligators statewide. They prefer living in "fresh and brackish water bodies and, occasionally, salt water," park officials said.

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