FIGHT WITH ALLIGATORS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 133, 2 December 1922, Page 7

FIGHT WITH ALLIGATORS

AUSTRALIAN'S TERRIBLE

EXPERIENCE,

(FROU OUR OTTN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 23rd November

There has arrived in Sydney the victim of a recent terrible fight with an. alligator—a duel in a river of the Northern Territory, from which the man, though badly mutilated, emerged the victor.

The hero of the episode and his brother went down to the Adelaide River, about twelve miles from their farmhouse, in search of horses. This is the story as he told it:—

•" While I was waiting for my brother I started fishing. No sooner had I dropped my line than a big fish broke it. As I had not another line, I strolled down the riverbank .to see a place where the horses could be got across. _It was near a small waterhole. I was about four feet from it when I sensed danger. I looked up just in time to see an alligator with its mouth open. Befa^e I could move it had grabbed me by the knee, and dragged me nnder the water as easily as a cat would pull down a rat. It banged me on the side, and shook its head. I came to the surface, and immediately jammed the fingers of my right hand in its left eye. It let go my knee, and grabbed my wrist.

" As the alligator started to pull me back again, I jammed by left thumb into its right eye, and it let me go again. Although the" water was then over my waist, I managed to straggle out and get behind an old stump. Hearing a great splash, I looked round, and there was the water being sent flying into the air, and the reptile biting great chunks out of the atmtisphere. Apparently it wa3 blinded, as it did not move away from the one spot. I managed to strnggle up to the top of the bank, and coo-eed for my brother, who had just returned. He took me to the camp, about 100 yards away, and bandaged my wounds, wjhich were bleeding freely/

Four times the injured man fainted before he Could be got on a horse, and then came a painful ride of eight miles through long gracs and " devil-devil " country. At last he fell from the animal, and lay exhausted until his brother returned with a dray.

Eventually the 77 miles' journey to Darwin by dray, train, and motor was completed, and the patient was put to bed in hospital, where he lay unconscious for six days. From May till November he was there, and now he has come to Sydney, hoping to obtain the best treatment, so as to regain the proper use of his injured limbs.