Triathlon coach describes how he fought off alligator during training swim

NORTH AUGUST, S.C. -- A North Carolina triathlon coach is recovering after he was attacked by an alligator during a training swim.

It happened during a training swim on Sunday in the Savannah River in North Augusta, South Carolina.

"We all jumped into the water. I went first. I'm their coach. I go in first. And we started the swim, and the water felt great," Jonathan Bruney said.

That changed about a thousand yards in.

"So got hit on the side, initially, I was like, 'oh, did I just swim into a, a big log?' I didn't see any logs in the water. But then I looked, and I was like, 'oh, no.' And the pain was like a cold pain up my arm and my body," Bruney said.

He had seconds to react.

"I just knew the eyes were what you should target. So just grabbed, put my hand on the snout, reached up, and then pushed my thumb into his eyeball, and he released," Bruney said.

But he still had water between him and safety.

"Immediately, I'm thinking, 'OK, let's get to shore.' So I look back, uh, to see my athletes, Jared, Will, Matt, say, 'swim to the docks. Get to the docks as fast as possible,'" Bruney said.

On the dock, a different type of training took over.

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"Immediately I took my swim buoy, and I ripped the cord off the swim buoy to make a tourniquet, and just applied a makeshift tourniquet onto his arm. Told him, it's gonna hurt. Squeezed as hard as I could, and I could watch the bleeding stop as we applied the tourniquet," Matthew Davis said.

The bleeding slowed as the search for help sped up.

"So we start banging on doors, and no one was home at that time. So then we jumped the fence. We get up to the street. We start running, trying to find someone on the road, and we ended up finding a gentleman walking their dogs and asked them to call 911," Davis said.

Until help could take over, Davis kept falling back on what he knew.

"OK, he's stable. Now let's get him to help. Where is help? It's not on the water. Let's get him to the street. And we just started; we just went through the processes. And my training is just evaluate. Process it. Execute; go to the next one. Execute; take it to the next one," Davis said. "I'm very thankful that it was not as severe as a bite as it could've been. It could've been way worse. He could've lost his arm. We could've had a lot of bleeding. But everything was panning out right; everything was taking place, and we got it taken care of."

And that morning isn't keeping Bruney from the course he came to prepare for.

"No swimming for three to four weeks, but we'll be back out there on race day, hopefully in the middle of the group, maybe not in the front for the swim at least, and try to make it a great day," Bruney said. "I told my athletes: I am a coach that will fight off and take a gator bite to protect you and make sure you're having a successful swim."

Wildlife officers searched the area Sunday but could not find the alligator.

The Savannah Riverkeeper says the incident is a reminder that the river is shared with wildlife.