Alligator bites off swimmer’s arm

An alligator attacked a woman swimming in a river Saturday near Orlando, biting off her arm below the shoulder, witnesses said.

The attack happened on the Wekiva River near Wekiva Island, where businesses rent out canoes about 15 miles northwest of Orlando. When nearby kayakers realized that the woman, who appeared to be in her late 30s or early 40s, was being attacked, they started hitting the alligator with their paddles.

“We see the jaws just chomp down on her arm, and it starts spinning around, pulls her underwater, goes back up,” canoeist Jakob Frick of Orlando told the Orlando Sentinel. “She’s just screaming.”

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