Close Call: Kayaker survives alligator attack

(WECT/NBC News) A man kayaking North Carolina’s Waccamaw River over the weekend had a close encounter with an alligator.

Peter Joyce put his kayak in near the dam on Lake Waccamaw to paddle down a part of the river he’d never explored.

While paddling along the river, an alligator charged Joyce’s kayak, tipping it over.

“I thought I heard a fish jump to my left—turned out not to be a fish,” Joyce recalls. “About three feet from the kayak I made out the head of the gator and that was it, I had no time to react.”

”My mind was playing catch-up at that point,” Joyce adds. “Basically, when I made out the head of the gator towards the front end of the kayak it was kind of just a state of shock. As soon as it hit the kayak and I went what just happened?”

The force of the gator overturned his kayak, but he was able to grab a tree in the water and get upright.

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