Jonathan Bruney, 31, had been swimming in a South Carolina river in preparation for September’s Ironman Augusta event, when the alligator clamped onto his arm

NEED TO KNOW

• An Ironman triathlete and endurance coach escaped an alligator attack on Sunday, Aug. 23, by using his left thumb to gouge the animal’s eye after it grabbed his arm and pulled him underwater
• Jonathan Bruney, 31, had brought some of the athletes he coaches to practice on the Savannah River in South Carolina when the alligator attacked
• Bruney has now been told to stay out of the water for three to four weeks, but still plans to return to the area for Ironman Augusta on Sept. 27

An Ironman triathlete and endurance coach managed to escape an alligator attack by gouging its eye after the animal pulled him underwater.

Jonathan Bruney, 31, had been training for a triathlon in the Savannah River in the South Carolina city of North Augusta at around 10:35 a.m. local time on Sunday, Aug. 23, when the alligator bit his right arm, the North Augusta Department of Public Safety confirmed in an incident report obtained by PEOPLE.

“Out of nowhere, it hit me,” Bruney told CBS affiliate WRDW. “It was a pretty big impact to my right side… it felt as if my elbow had made a hard impact, maybe like diving on a gym basketball court.”

He told the outlet he thought he’d hit a log at first, before “cold pain” shot up his arm, making him realize the culprit was actually an alligator.

The endurance athlete used his left thumb to gouge the alligator’s eye to get it to release his arm after it pulled him underwater. He then shouted to warn people nearby, the incident report obtained by PEOPLE stated.

“I just knew the eyes were what you should target,” Bruney, of Charlotte, N.C., told WRDW. “I put my hand on the snout, reached up, and pushed my thumb into his eyeball, and he released.”

“I immediately thought, ‘I need to get this off of me,’ because I didn’t want him to spin or death roll and do even more damage,” Bruney told WRDW of his quick thinking.

Bruney was bleeding heavily, so fellow triathlete Matthew Davis, a wilderness first responder, used the cord on his swim buoy as a tourniquet, the outlet reported.

The athletes, who didn’t have their phones with them, found a man walking his dogs and asked him to call 911, WRDW reported. First responders met Bruney nearby, and he was taken to a local hospital, where doctors told him he mostly sustained skin and fat damage, rather than muscle.

“It could have been a lot worse,” he told the outlet. “I guess I won the alligator lottery.”

Officers searched across the shoreline for the alligator but couldn’t find the animal, and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources was also notified, WRDW stated.

Bruney, who previously lived in Augusta, Ga., on the other side of the river, had brought some of the athletes he works with to the water for a practice run ahead of the Sept. 27 event.

“The goal was to get to Augusta and really just go through the entire simulation,” he told WRDW. “Swim down the river, bike part of the course, and run on the Greeneway [trail]… just to get the athletes confident and clear those pre‑race nerves.”

Bruney told the outlet he knew there could be alligators in the river, but said he’d never knowingly put his athletes in danger.

He added to The Augusta Press that the swimmers did not approach or feed the alligator before the incident. “There was no interaction with the animal prior to the bite,” he insisted.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Bruney has been told to stay out of the water for three to four weeks, but he told WRDW he still hopes to take part in Ironman Augusta, insisting the incident hadn’t deterred him.

“It’s Georgia,” he told WRDW. “It’s the South. It happens.”

Davis told the outlet, “Am I scared of the water? No. But do I have a very healthy respect for the water and what’s in it? Absolutely,” adding that he considered the incident to be a “freak accident.”

#Triathlete #Escapes #Alligator #Attack #Pushing #Thumb #Animals #Eyeball #Hit