Kim Spencer was in the backyard of her home in Tampa, Florida, when she heard something no owner wants to hear: the splash of an alligator by the lake behind her property. Seconds later, the entire head of Kona, her 9-year-old rescue dog, was inside the reptile’s jaws.
There was no time to think. Spencer jumped on the roughly six-foot-long alligator (1.80 cm), straddled it, and used her own hands to force its jaw open. It all happened in a matter of seconds, she told local media.
Kona survived. Both needed stitches, but they recovered. An alligator trapper later removed the animal from the area, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed.