‘I was inside its mouth.’ Florida man looking for teeth lives to tell about gator attack
A man had a terrifying encounter while out searching for shark teeth fossils last weekend. Tampa resident Jeffrey Heim, 25, almost became alligator food.
Heim tells Fox 13 Tampa Bay he’d been out searching for megalodon shark teeth Sunday in the Myakka River in Venice, in southwestern Florida. He regularly looks for teeth there to make jewelry and other items for his outdoor lifestyle company Sharkco.
Heim told the TV station he was at the bottom of the murky water in scuba gear when he got blasted in the head with what he at first thought was a boat propeller.
“It hit me so hard,” Heim recounted. “I realized I was inside its mouth and if the alligator hadn’t decided to let me go on its own, there was nothing I could have done to fight it.”
A few days after the attack, Heim updated his followers with a few pictures on Instagram.
One shows Heim, who is also a commercial spear fisherman, in an ambulance, his head bandaged.
“Got bit in the head by a big gator while free-diving for shark teeth in a river yesterday,” read the caption. “I’m very lucky and blessed to be leaving the hospital and ICU today after 34 staples and a mild skull fracture.”
In another post on Friday, Heim stands near the riverbed, aka “Ground Zero,” where the attack occurred. With a swollen eye but smiling, the tooth hunter explains that he was wearing a GoPro camera when the gator chomped down and a pal is going to try to find it.
His friend should be OK. Heim reports the Florida wildlife officer removed a six-foot, four-inch gator at that location.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 11:23 AM.
