HORROR NIGHT OUT I peed in a pond when the toilet queue was too long on a night out – when I woke up my arm had been chewed off

A MAN who peed in a pond during a night out woke up to find that his right arm had been chewed off.

The 23-year-old from Florida decided to pee in the water behind a bar after noticing how long the queue to the bathroom was.

Jordan Rivera revealed that his right arm had been chomped off by a 10-and-a-half-foot alligator in the horrific mauling.

Speaking to NBC from his hospital bed in Fort Myers intensive care unit, he recalled the final moments before the devastating incident.

“I just saw a little lake, so I was tryna go over there and take a little pee,” he told the channel, saying he “didn’t realize how big” the pond actually was.

“Something happened where I either tripped or the ground below me kind of just went down — and I ended up in the water,” he said.

“And that’s literally the last thing I remember.”

The bar-goer, who had been on a night out at Banditos, spoke of his “confusion” when he woke up in a hospital bed and was informed that his arm had been chewed off by a gator.

“I looked over and I saw my arm the way it was and I was like, ‘Whoa’.

“It kind of feels like my arm is just there, but not there,” he said.

But the gruesome attack didn’t seem to faze Jordan as he gave his calm and collected thoughts following the mauling.

“I didn’t lose my life, I lost an arm, it’s not the end of the world,” he said.

“Those gators, I didn’t truly understand them until I woke up in the hospital and, ‘Oh, ‘gator got your arm’.”

Jordan has now been left with only half of his right arm after the huge gator chomped off up to his elbow.

The man reportedly still needs to have a procedure carried out to fully clean the wound of bacteria.

“They got my elbow,” he said, “so I don’t have an elbow.

“I can still move my arm around and whatnot”.

The mauled man’s mum, Teresa Lessa, was left horrified at the grisly attack but followed in the footsteps of her son’s upbeat attitude.

“That’s the best thing, is that I have him. Yes, arm gone, very traumatic. But he’s here,” she said.

She extended her gratitude to those who came to Jordan’s side following the attack and hailed the helpers “angels” after one man used his belt as a tourniquet, kneeling on Jordan’s shoulder to stop the bleeding while they waited for him to be airlifted to the hospital.

“The chance of someone being there with a tourniquet, to me, it’s a miracle that he’s here,” she said.

Witness Manny Hidalgo was inside the bar when he heard screaming coming from a pond outside, prompting him to go investigate.

“He was yelling and swimming toward the shoreline,” Hidalgo told The Daily Sun while describing how he braved gator-infested waters to help save the victim from the 10-foot animal.

“I ran and dragged him up onto the sand. I was scared to get close to the water because it was dark out.”

Hidalgo said that he was still in shock from the encounter, admitting that he was terrified when he entered the water.

“He was a pretty big guy. I’m not sure how I did it. I guess my adrenaline kicked in,” Hidalgo said.

“I don’t know if it was a mama gator trying to save her young, or a daddy gator trying to feed his family… but the guy was very lucky.”

Jordan has also made sure to clear up any rumours that have been swirling around in his local area after the incident – as it was said the gator took a chunk of his arm while the bloke was trying to feed it Banditos bar food.

“They don’t even serve food at that bar, so I couldn’t have even served the gator food,” he said, insisting that the rumour was “completely not true”.

Wildlife officials later confirmed that the alligator involved in the attack had been located and euthanised, and a GoFundMe page has now been set up for Jordan and his family.

This article by Taryn Pedler was first published by The Sun on 26 May 2023. Lead Image: Jordan Rivera had his arm chomped off by a 10ft alligator when he went to pee in a lake behind a barCredit: NBC.

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