Florida Man Recalls Surviving Alligator Attack

— -- What started out as a repair job became a life-or-death struggle when a Central Florida man was attacked by an 8-foot alligator that jumped out of a canal and tried to pull him into the water.

Doug Brown said he was repairing a water pump earlier this week near the shore of a lake behind his mother's home with his family. He admitted he ignored her warning about an alligator nearby.

"She said, 'Watch out for that gator. It looks pretty mean.'" said Brown. "I looked over my shoulder and jokingly said, 'Do want me to take care of that for you?'"

And that's when it attacked with Brown’s mother watching in horror.

“I was thinking, 'Oh my God! It's got my son!'” she remembered.

“It came out of the water like a torpedo,” Brown recalled. “It was just a big splash. I turned my head and saw a white belly and an open mouth coming straight to me.”

Brown, 45, suffered a four-inch gash on his hand and severed tendons. The gator's teeth slashed him as he pulled his hand from its jaws.

“I didn't even know I was hurt until I looked down and saw there was a gash on the back of my hand,” Brown said. "I'm familiar with alligators quite a bit and it was the last thing that I expected was for it to do what it did."

Wildlife officers later arrived and pulled the alligator from the canal, reported ABC affiliate WFTV in Orlando.