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A 17-year-old boy lost his right arm below the elbow to an 11-foot alligator while swimming across the Caloosahatchee River near Moore Haven, Florida, and survived by choosing to give up the limb rather than be pulled under, according to news reports of the July 9, 2012, attack.

Kaleb Langdale was leading a group of friends across the river when the alligator surfaced and swam toward him, according to interviews he later gave to ABC News. Langdale said he told the others to get back, grabbed the animal and tried to keep its jaws away from him before it rolled and dragged him underwater. He said he realized he had to lose the arm or he would drown.

Langdale reached the far bank, wedged the wound between his legs to slow the bleeding and flagged down a passing motorist, according to NBC News. One of his friends called 911. "A gator just got my friend and he's in the water," the caller told a dispatcher in a recording released by authorities. "We were swimming in the river and he was bit in the middle of the river."

Trappers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission killed an 11-foot alligator and recovered Langdale's forearm from its stomach, but too much time had passed for surgeons to reattach it, according to the agency. Officials said alligators are more active and aggressive during their summer mating season.

Langdale was treated at a Fort Myers hospital and released. In September 2012 he was fitted with a myoelectric prosthetic arm at a Florida clinic, a device donated by the Hanger Clinic and a nonprofit group, that let him grip objects and return to driving and running an airboat with one hand.

"I'm just happy that I'm still alive," Langdale told reporters after receiving the prosthesis. "I could care less about the arm."