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A crocodile expert says Jim "Finnegan" Ramirez is lucky to be alive after he escaped a croc's jaws last week. As we told you, the Caye Caulker resident was running from police - when he dashed into the lagoon behind the island, right into the home grounds of two crocodiles. One of them bit him on the forearm leaving a nasty gash.
Chris Summers from ACES Wildlife Rescue says Ramirez is lucky he still has a hand! He spoke to us via zoom from his base in San Pedro
Jules Vasquez:
"How fortunate is he to have escaped with his limbs intact?"
Chris Summers, ACES
"Pretty lucky. So the croc obviously wasn't hunting him because the outcome would have been very different. Generally, when adult crocodiles are hunting something and they get their teeth into it, generally that doesn't get away whatever they've got hold of. So the gentleman is really very lucky, it could have gone so much worse. It seemed like he surprised the animal and it turned and had a snap at him kind of out of a defensive thing and I understand from your guys news story last night that it kind of held on for a minute and that is a, let's call it a natural response from the crocs when they are surprised. Whatever surprises them, they turn and, they snap and they kind of grip on for a second and then it seems once he realized what he got a hold on was much larger than what he's used to hunting that it let go, thankfully for this gentleman."
"It could have very easily gone the other way and he could have lost limb or even worse, so, very, very lucky man."
