With an alligator’s teeth clamped tightly on his left hand, Refugio County Game Warden Paul “Pinky” Gonzales had a lot more to lose than his nickname. -- It had started out as a routine call on 2 April to clear an alligator off a farm-to-market road south of Woodsboro. Although the alligator was large, Gonzales had relocated bigger ones in his 24-year career. March through June is routinely a busy time for such nuisance calls give it’s the animals mating season.
While his stepson, Kelly Bernal, looked for a rag to put over the gator’s eyes, Gonzales straddled it and flipped a rope around its mouth. He wanted to get it rolling so it would expend energy and, thus, buy him time to tape his mouth shut. This gator, though, was no push over. He wouldn’t budge.
“I was on him a little to long,” Gonzales said. “The gator scooted up and got me off-balance. It reared back, and I instinctively put my hand up to protect my face. Suddenly, it felt like someone was driving cold nails through my hand.”
Gonzales’ first thought was to roll with the alligator, assuming it would go into a death roll intended to tear off chunks of it’s victim. Then he had a flash. “I thought, ‘If I don’t pull my hand out, he’s going to tear a limb off.’” Gonzales said. “Even if I left my hand in there, at least I’d have my arm from the wrist up. I was thinking all this stuff. I knew what an alligator can do. I’d seen them tear a deer apart.”
His mind set, Gonzales ripped his hand out of the gator’s mouth. His effort freed his left hand, but left it a bloddy pulp. Gonzales rolled away and pulled out a Glock .40 (handgun) with his right hand as the gator came after him. “I was able to put two bullets into him, in his mouth and in his head,” he said. “I double tapped him. I’m grateful for the department’s training. It all came naturally to me.”
With the gator stopped dead in it’s tracks, Gonzales wrapped his hand in a shirt from his pick up. Bernal dragged the animal into a ditch, stunned at the chain of events--but not surprised by Gonzales’ feat. “I think it was more than training, Bernal said. “It’s just who he is. He’s the embodiment of a Texas game warden.
Gonzales contacted his supervisor, Capt. Henry Baldermas, who lived nerby. “He looked like he had been in a tussle,” Baldermas said.
Besides the bloody shirt wrapped around his hand, Gonzales’ gums could be seen through a cut lip. The gator had also fractured his jaw, broke one tooth down to the root and damaged two others.
The captain loaded Gonzales into his vehicle and drove him to Citizens Medical Center in Victoria. -- “It’s normally a 40-minute trip,” Gonzales said. “He made it in less than 30.”
“I kept talking to him, trying to keep him awake,” Balderamas said. “I remember telling him that I wasn’t sure if I knew how to get to the hospital. I knew where it was, of course, but I wanted to keep him talking. I’ve known pinky almost 20 years. I could tell by the low tone of his voice that he wa in a lot of pain.”
At the hospital, Gonzales’ injuries led doctors to schedule two surgeries. The first came the next morning. Doctors cleaned out his wounds and sewed up his lip. Surgery to repair Gonzales’ hand, though, was delayed two weeks to ensure there was no infection.
Gonzales is scheduled to return to work at the end of June. Thanks to a successful opperation and intnesive physical therapy, he’s aiming for the end of pay.
Source: 14 May “Lone Star Outdoor News.”
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