Alligator Mauls Landscaper

SANIBEL, Fla. -- A 12-foot alligator attacked a landscaper Wednesday as she worked behind an island home, dragging her into a pond and biting her right arm so severely that part of it was later amputated.

Janie Melsek, 54, of Sanibel, was also severely injured on her buttocks and inner thighs from the gator bites but doctors say she will walk again, her family said. She was in critical condition and her arm was amputated midway between her elbow and wrist.

''The lady was in the pond and the alligator had ahold of her and just her face was showing,'' said Jim Anholt, who lives across the street from the pond.

He held Melsek's neck to help keep her head above water, and three Sanibel police officers tried to get her out of the water.

''It was kind of a tug of war,'' Anholt told The News-Press of Fort Myers.

Rescuers struggled for about five minutes to pull her from the pond. When she was freed, medical workers began treating her on the shore.

Police shot the alligator in the head, killing it. It took six men to lift the 12-foot 3-inch animal to shore.

The body was being sent to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which will perform a necropsy.