OKEECHOBEE COUNTY — When an 11-foot alligator leaped out of the water and clamped down on his arm and chest, Antonio Prado was caught by surprise.

Prado was dragged under the water by the alligator, which bit him on his arm and chest.

“I had been there (to Nubbin Slough on Lake Okeechobee) casting my (fishing) net many times,” said Prado, 47, from his room in Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute in Fort Pierce. “I had seen alligators and they never bothered me.”

Prado of Okeechobee, is a truck driver. On his day off Monday, he went fishing with his son, Jonatan, 24, in Nubbin Slough.

“(The alligator) was on the side of the water, when I went in. He went in too,” Prado said. “I didn’t think about it because others had done the same. I threw in my net. When I pulled it up, he came out of the water. He pulled me under the water and we rolled around twice before I could get to the surface to call for help.”

Prado said there were three men on the bank, “but they didn’t want to get in.”

His son came to the rescue armed with a set of heavy pliers, which he threw, striking the alligator on the head. The gator released Prado, and Jonatan pulled him out of the water. Someone called 911 and the rescue personnel took him to Lawnwood by helicopter.

“I have bites in three or four places on my arm and chest,” said Prado, while recovering Tuesday.

He said he feels lucky because his son was there.

The day began innocently enough, said Prado’s daughter, Litcia Salavar of Okeechobee.

“After breakfast, he said he was going for a walk around the shore of the lake,” she said. “Jonatan, who has just returned from duty with the Army in Iraq, and my 8-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter went with them.

“They just decided to try fishing and it happened. My kids were freaking out, but they are OK now.”

Salavar said she thinks her father will confine himself to just walking and not going near the water and its alligators.

Asked if he would be fishing on the slough again, Prado replied: “Go back! Maybe for a long time, no.”

Tags: alligator, Okeechobee, pliers, strike, water

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