(NBC News) — An animal trainer who was attacked by an alligator during a child’s birthday celebration in Utah over the weekend was saved in a bold rescue, with a bystander leaping onto the reptile’s back and helping subdue the animal.
The trainer, Lindsay Bull, told NBC affiliate KSL she was feeding the 8 1/2-foot male alligator at Scales and Tails in suburban Salt Lake City, the educational and entertainment company where she’s worked for nearly four years, when the attack occurred Saturday.
Bull said she’d planned on feeding the reptile, Darth Gator, and had opened his enclosure when he began acting aggressively. She grabbed under his lower jaw and pushed him back — “something I’ve done lots of times before,” she told the station — when he pushed back.
“I can’t tell you exactly what happened,” she said, but the gator snatched her hand and “really bit down.”
