Crocodile Mauls Swimmer in Cozumel

An American swimmer, in Cozumel on a dive vacation is lucky to be alive after a crocodile attacked him off the beach near the Occidental Hotel. Richard Greager, a 72-year-old personal trainer and spin bike instructor, took a before-dinner swim on April 7 and told the press, "one minute I am just enjoying my swim, and the next second I'm fighting for my life."

He was about 30 yards from the beach when he felt a hit from behind. "I turned to look, expecting to see a person, and instead it was the head of a crocodile just a couple feet away from me," he said.

Then the 10-foot-long crocodile lunged. As Greager tried to push it away, it chomped down on his right arm and "started thrashing around like a dog with a rag toy, going back and forth," he said. He pounded his left fist into the crocodile's head and kicked and screamed. Then the crocodile went into the death roll that they use with prey, violently twisting onto its back and pulling Greager toward the bottom.

Greager kept fighting and "for whatever reason, he let go, and I started to drift back up towards the surface." He estimated the water was 15 to 20 feet deep. It approached again, and Greager managed to push it away before it swam off.

Greager surfaced and grabbed the swim buoy rope with his good hand and started pulling himself toward shore. As blood spread through the water, his cries for help were heard by people on the beach. Several ran into the ocean to pull him to safety.

A lifeguard put a tourniquet on his right arm and others above his elbow.

He arrived at the hospital in the worst pain he's ever felt, he said. He grabbed the hands of the doctors, begging them to save his right arm. He was in surgery for six hours, with both a vascular surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon working on his damaged arm. The artery in his right arm was severed, and all the tendons were torn, Greager said. But although the two main nerves in his arms were exposed, they were not damaged, and no bones were broken. A cut on the back of his leg was stapled closed, and wounds to his left hand were stitched up.

He spent three days in the hospital, with IV antibiotics and a nerve block for the pain, and several more days under treatment before flying home. Doctors in the Washington State Tri-City area, where he lives, gave Greager a good chance of regaining most of the function of his right arm.

He has no qualms about getting back into the water. And he's hopeful he will be recovered enough for their scuba diving trip to Indonesia in October.

"I made it 72 years without getting attacked by a crocodile," he said. "I think that's my one and done."

PS: Last November, a crocodile attacked a woman in the water in the same beach area. She was taken to the hospital with multiple puncture wounds and was released after treatment.

From a story by Annette Cary in the Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, WA)