David and Dawn's Outdoor Adventure

Scene 1:
Setting: Somewhere in the Virginia Wilds....

Dawn: Are you sure this is Montpelier ? I think we are LOST.
David: Damn right, I never get lost! I've got a Dell Axim x51v PDA with an On-Course blue-tooth GPS receiver powered by a double-sized Lithium-ion battery. It's running the latest patched version of Memory-Map'sPocket Navigator utilizing the latest downloaded Marine navigation charts from "http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/download.htm". Hell, I have better than 3 meter resolution once I get a fix with my enabled Differential GPS locator !
Dawn: This doesn't look right. Something's wrong. I STILL think we are lost!
David: Quiet woman, I think I hear something....

Scene 2: Deep in the Great Dismal Swamp

David: There it is! The lizard I have been searching for!
Dawn: That's not a lizard, you idiot!
David: It is too!. Its the elusive Greater horned Giant Eastern Salamander "Plethodon Glutinosus". I got an A.S. degree in Biology from Thomas Nelson Communitity College (locally know as "Harvard by the Highway"), I should know what I'm talking about!
Dawn: "Should" is the operative word here.
Dawn: David, that really looks like a .....
David: Quiet!!! You'll scare it away....
David: Now, just move a little bit more forward and I'll have this noose around his.... Hey, don't you know how to drive a boat! We'll never get anywhere until you get that outboard actually "into" the water!
Dawn: Shut up maggot. It's your boat after all, I can't help it if your equipment is a little short...
David: Almost.... Almost.... There I've got 'em!

Moments later.....




SUFFOLK, VA An 11-foot (3.30-metre) bull alligator tore off a man's arm and swallowed it, wildlife officials said.

Trappers killed the alligator and recovered the severed arm from its stomach but doctors said it was too badly mangled to try reattaching it.

The injured man, David Aherron, was listed in fair condition at Shands Hospital at the University of Southern Virginia, where he was "in good spirits," a spokeswoman said. They didn't say which kind.

The alligator "lunged up and grabbed ahold of his right arm and severed it just below the elbow," officials said.

Trappers harpooned the alligator and hoisted it to the bank, where a sheriff's deputy shot it in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun and killed it, officials said.

"I physically slit the alligator open, reached in, and I could feel the victim's arm in the stomach," officials told Reuters by phone. "I was able to sever the stomach and pull the victim's arm out."
The arm was recovered about 90 minutes after the attack, he said. Paramedics took it to the hospital but it was too badly damaged to be reattached.

Aherron will need hospital care for at least several more days, said Dr. Larry Chidgey, who operated on him.

"The biggest risk now is infection," Chidgey told a news conference. "He will need additional surgery to try and make sure there are no other dead tissues present that could lead to infection."

He said Aherron was alert enough to describe the attack when he arrived at the hospital.

"He did recall that the alligator obviously grabbed his arm, there was a twisting type action," the doctor said.

Aherron told wildlife officials he did not see the alligator until it attacked.

Story by Jane Sutton

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE