NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WSVN) — A quiet evening of fishing turned into a desperate fight for survival after a North Fort Myers man was attacked by an alligator. The attack forced 71-year-old James Grayson McMicken with devastating injuries to his right leg. “I started reeling, and it jumpe d out of the water and grabbed me,” he said. “I was doing everything I can to not die.” McMicken said there was only one thing he could think of to fight back. “I’ve always heard that if you have no other choice, get them eyes. And that’s what got him off of me,” he said. “No gator is going to run me off.” He credited his years of experience around alligators, preventing him from getting overwhelmed with panic and focus on jabbing at the reptile’s eyes. “He rolled me down off the bank into the water. I stuck my thumb in his eye. And I just took that fishing pole and stabbed him in that other eye and jabbed him, and jabbed him. It seemed like forever but it wasn’t that long. But then he turned loose,” he said. Even after escaping the gator’s jaws, the ordeal was not over. Badly injured and bleeding, McMicken still had to find a way to get back to his home before he could get medical help. He said that his dog became an unexpected lifeline. “I would’ve never made it crawling this far. So I called my dog over and she stood there and let me get up on her back to where I could get stood up,” Once he made it back inside, he said that his wife cleaned his wounds. Exhausted from the attack and blood loss, he collapsed in a chair and passed out. His family rushed him to a hospital in Cape Coral. Photos from his hospital stay show bite wounds that required dozens of stitches and staples. McMicken said that the nurses stopped by his room after hearing how he escaped his attack. “All the nurses that were on the floor had to come by and say ‘Wow’. [laughs] ‘Wow. You did what?!'” he said. He said he is grateful to be alive, and that he refuses to let fear keep him away from the water. McMicken is now recovering at home and will begin physical therapy soon. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers and a state contracted nuisance alligator trapper are searching for the reptile. ...read more read less