Horror footage: Florida Man Wrestles Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Puppy From Jaws of Killer Alligator; says prying open its jaws was “extremely hard!”

And a timely warning for surfers!

Florida, as they say in The States, is where the weird things are.

A champagne-disco potpourri running the gambit from eighteen-dollar gin and tonics in Miami to toothless reptile wrestlers near the Everglades. Whenever a faux pas is committed anywhere in the US, it can often be redeemed with, “Its ok, he’s from Florida.”

It does, however, have its share of heroes.

Richard Wilbanks, who is seventy-four, was walking his three-month old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Gunner around a pond close to his house when “it (alligator) came out of the water like a missile. I never thought an alligator could be that fast.”

The reptile grabbed the puppy in its jaws and dragged it underwater.

“I just automatically jumped into the water,” Wilbanks told CNN.

Wilbanks said holding the alligator wasn’t difficult but prying open the jaws was “extremely hard” adding he had no hard feelings towards the killer gator.

“They’re part of nature and part of our lives,” he said.

Alligators and crocodiles would be the last thing surfers would need to concern themselves with, you’d think.

But they’re around.

A British surfer was taken whole near Elephant Rock in Sri Lanka in 2017.

And, in 2018, in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, an American surfer got his leg and head spun like raw pretzel dough while crossing a river on his board.

On a simpler biological note, like the Tharu and the Danuwar tribes of Nepal who have built an immunity to malaria through centuries of exposure, has Mr. Wilbanks inherited an innate ability to wrestle gators by simply living in Florida? 

More important, how far would you go go to save a best friend?

Best I’ve done to date is change his hot water heater…