A Floridian man has spoken about how he survived an alligator attack (stock) (Image: Getty)
A man who survived a terrifying alligator attack in Florida, USA, has spoken out about the harrowing experience. Eric Merda, a Florida native, recounted how he ventured into woodland near Myakka City in Manatee County during a particularly dark period in his life, spending six hours battling his way through the undergrowth.
Speaking to the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel, he revealed that he had recently lost his seven children, whom he had shared with two different women, leaving him with no one to provide for. During his ordeal, he managed to locate his van, but faced a significant obstacle — it was parked on the opposite side of a lake which Eric estimated to be roughly a mile to a mile and a half wide. He explained that while he could have skirted around the lake, he opted instead to take the risky aquatic shortcut.
Eric Merda said the attack only lasted a couple of minutes (Image: YouTube/@SoftWhiteUnderbelly)
Despite the obvious peril, he plunged into the water, and his troubles quickly mounted. He said: “I got caught in a current or they opened up the dam, I’m not really sure which. I was swimming in circles for hours.
“So, I started floating on my back gazing up at the stars, and the stars actually triangulated and looked like an alligator. And I was like ‘Man that looks like an alligator’ and that’s when I flipped over my stomach to see an alligator right next to me.”
Eric then described the attack in vivid detail, recalling: “[It] grabbed my forearm, so I rolled over grabbed its ribs so it couldn’t roll. It snapped my arm backwards, tried to drown me a few times.
“Eventually, the third time coming up, I couldn’t touch the ground – I’m just kicking the water, my hand slipped off of its ribs and that’s when it did its death roll and it pinched it shut for me so I didn’t die.”
Eric revealed the attack was extremely brief and likely lasted just a couple of minutes. When questioned whether he believed floating in the lake was risky, he responded: “I had no way out. I was worn out. I was naked at this point. I had put my clothes out to the bottom of the lake because they were drowning me.”
Eric Merda (Image: YouTube/@SoftWhiteUnderbelly)
The interviewer additionally enquired why he was in the woods, to which Eric explained he was experiencing an internal spiritual struggle as well.
He said: “Letting go. Fighting with God. I was p*****d off. I didn’t have my kids no more. I was mad at God. I was learning that it was actually ok to be mad at him. I was dealing with it in ways I shouldn’t have, literally shoving my way through the bushes. Cut from head to toe after a while.”
He also said: “When I came out of the woods into the orange field and then I found the water again, I’m looking across the lake at my van and it’s getting to nighttime. I’m already cut from head to toe.”
Despite the savage nature of the assault, Eric succeeded in escaping the lake. He said: “I ended up swimming back to the shore where I basically came from. I found this stump, it was a tree…. I fell asleep by there for a few hours. I never seen a drop of blood, believe it or not.”
Eric, who ran his own sprinkler business at the time, wrapped up his account of the attack by revealing that he did not seek hospital treatment for three days, partly due to the sheer length of time it took him to make his way out of the swamp.
