Alligator Pulls Handler Into Enclosure & Does Death Roll
on Aug 16, 2021 • Updated Nov 10, 2022
Theresa and Donnie Wiseman were taking their kid to Scales and Tails Utah for a birthday party when they captured an alligator biting the hand of its trainer and then pulling her into its enclosure to do the death roll on her.
Scales and Tails Utah is a venue that provides entertaining, educational, and interactive reptile/bird shows for any special event, like birthday parties, school assemblies, fairs, scout groups, corporate events, etc.
On this particular day, Theresa was there filming an animal handler opening the door to an alligator’s enclosure when it lunged its head out of the door. She put her hand under the gator’s chin and pushed it back into the enclosure.
However, she mistakenly left her arm near the gator’s mouth for a split second too long and it chomped down onto her hand.
At this point, the gator pulled her into his enclosure and began to thrash his head around. The kids and parents witnessing this in person began to scream, cry and freak out. Well, everyone but one man, Donnie Wiseman.
The alligator had the animal handler in the water with it and started to do the notorious death roll of spinning its body in an attempt to break off the woman’s arm.
She wisely rolled with the alligator to prevent her arm from being ripped off. This was about the time Donnie came in and did something that quite possibly saved her life.
Donnie climbed into the enclosure with the instruction of the animal handler and hops down onto the alligator’s back to pin it down. They calmly laid there together in the water to keep the gator still.
It eventually let go of her arm and another bystander grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the enclosure.
Donnie was still in there by himself situated on the gator’s back, but with the instructions of the animal trainer, he was able to quickly jump off of the reptile and safely get out of the enclosure.
“These gentleman could have stayed in the safety zone as most of us would, but instead jumped into the situation, of their own volition, and helped secure the alligator,” Scales and Tails Utah said in a social media post. “Their help, combined with the training of our staff member, probably saved her life and her limbs.”
You can watch the video of the incident below.
