Harrowing 911 calls have revealed the immediate aftermath of a savage alligator attack that left a Florida mother with severe injuries to her arm and hand. Dina Spann, 58, was on a family boating trip on the Silver River in Marion County on August 8 when the incident occurred.
One of the emergency calls captures the panic as a woman tells the dispatcher, "Somebody got bit by an alligator, I think her arm got bit –– it’s dangling off." She later adds, "She lost half an arm." As others attempt to get Spann onto a boat, the dispatcher inquires if the arm was amputated, to which the caller replies, "I think so."
A second 911 call features a woman screaming and crying, while a man relays their location on the Silver River. "Her arm is gone," the man tells the operator.
Spann's son, Zach Guerrina, stated in August that his mother's right arm was left "hanging by a thread" after the attack. He described how Spann fought back, losing part of her left ring finger before the alligator seized her right forearm. She reportedly struggled to keep the gator from biting her legs and managed to swim to the surface for air.
Following the attack, trappers contracted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission removed a 9-foot, 8-inch alligator from the river. The waterway was subsequently reopened to the public.
Spann later shared the extent of her injuries on Facebook in September, revealing that her right arm had been amputated below the elbow and the ring finger from her left hand was missing. She expressed resilience, stating, "The gator got a piece of me. It didn’t get the best of me."
This incident occurred shortly after other alligator-related fatalities and injuries in Florida. In June, hiker Brittany Clark was killed by a 13-foot alligator while swimming in the Econlockhatchee River. Also in June, an 11-year-old boy lost a hand in Marion County after a gator attacked while he was fishing. In October, Steven Hamilton, 71, was killed by a 12-foot alligator on the shoreline of Lake Apopka.