GOOSE CREEK — Will Georgitis was thrilled to find several large fossilized shark teeth. But with only enough air for 10 more minutes in his scuba tank, it was time to surface.
As soon as his head broke the water line on April 15, Georgitis saw an alligator swimming nearby in the Cooper River.
"It made a beeline right at me," he said.
A foot away, the gator opened its jaws.
Thinking it was going for his head — a bite he believed would surely kill him — Georgitis threw up his right arm in a blocking move. The alligator clamped down on his forearm.
Anticipating the animal would twist his arm in a spin move to take him underwater, Georgitis wrapped his free arm and both legs around the body of the alligator so he would roll with it.
He's not sure how big the beast was, but he couldn't hook his ankles together when he wrapped his legs around it.
"And I'm 6' 2"," he said.
With the alligator's jaws clutching his arm from wrist to elbow, Georgitis took the screwdriver he uses to pry fossils out of the river bed and tried to stab the reptile in the eye.
He's not sure if he hit home, but the gator immediately shook him "like a rag doll" and dove to the bottom of the Cooper River near Goose Creek — where the lowest point is about 50 feet at that spot. The alligator pinned him to the bottom with the weight of its body. The only part of the gator he could still reach with the screwdriver was its gum line. He kept stabbing and struggling to get free.
Then his scuba tank went dry.
"I knew I was going to die right then and there," Georgitis said from his home in West Ashley.
The last thing he could think to try was ripping off his own arm. He planted both feet on the massive creature. The he pushed as hard as he could.
Georgitis isn't sure how, but the gator's teeth scraped over his arm instead of tearing it off. He broke free and bolted for the surface. There, a friend waiting in a boat dragged him out of the water.
"It was a living nightmare," Georgitis said
