“Leave them gators alone” – that’s the advice from a Florida man who lost his arm to one of the huge reptiles after he took the questionable decision to swim across a lake.

Eric Merda, from Sarasota, was sent to hospital after the attack at Lake Manatee Fish Camp in Myakka City in the US state on 17 July.

Now out of hospital and adjusting to life without his arm, he has spoken about the scary incident which saw him maimed by the alligator and wander around lost for three days.

Speaking in an interview, he said he came across the lake and decided to swim across instead of walk around it.

“I looked over and there’s a gator on my right-hand side, so I went to swim, and she got my forearm, so I grabbed her like this, she was trying to roll, but she snapped her head, so my arm went backwards… completely,” Mr Merda said.

He says he had to fight for his life.

“She dragged me under, three times. She’s already got my arm, so when we came up the third time, she finally did a death roll and took off with my arm.”

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He managed to get out of the lake, but then spent three days trying to find his way.

“You can’t see anything… sometimes I felt like I was walking in circles, I didn’t know,” he said.

“So I started following the sun and power lines, stuff like that, things I could see.”

After three days in the swamp, he says he stumbled on a fence and a man on the other side.

“I said ‘hey man I need some help’ and he says ‘what are you doing’ and I said ‘a gator got my arm’.

Now he’s adapting to a new normal with a new perspective… and he has some alligator-based advice.

“Do not feed the gators alright and you guys know who you are, throwing rocks at them and stuff, I’ve seen it on the job sites, leave them gators alone,” he said.

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