Diver attacked by alligator while looking for shark teeth in Florida river

A Florida man is recovering this week after surviving an alligator bite to his head while diving for prehistoric shark teeth.

Jeffrey Heim said the attack happened just moments after he went into the Myakka River to search for fossilized shark teeth, something he routinely does. The surprise attack Sunday afternoon left him with a skull fracture and 34 staples, told local news outlet Fox 13.

“It just hit me twice — once right here, once right here,” Heim said as he showed his injuries to the camera.

“And I think my hand might have protected my face because I have a puncture wound on the top and bottom,” he said. “But it just happened so fast. There’s nothing I could have done to defend myself.”

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Heim, who was dressed in a wetsuit, said the animal bit him while he was getting some air above the water.

“I come up and just get blasted by what felt like a propeller on a boat going 50 miles per hour,” he told the station. “It pulled me down, pulled my mask off.”

The Tampa resident managed to get his head above the water again and locked eyes with the angry reptile, who then turned away and left him alone.

“You have to learn how to not act like prey,” he said. “And we just looked at each other — I didn’t flail around, because that would have triggered his prey instincts even more.”

The river, which is near the city of Venice on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is like a “boneyard” of fossils that include many shark teeth, Heim said. But Sunday’s dive may have been his last time there, he told Fox 13.

“Your life is worth more than any shark tooth — or whatever you enjoy,” he said. “But I won’t stop diving, I’m just going to find safer ways to do it. Probably not in that river.”