Alligator Attack!

Terrible news to report. A 11 year old boy (Devin Funck) was attacked by an alligator near Kingspoint subdivision Slidell. The attacking alligator bit of the boys arm!

The alligator was later captured and killed and the boys arm retrieved. The arm was rushed to Ochsner Medical Center. Devin underwent surgery to try to reattach the arm.

It is not known at this time if the surgery will be able to save the boys arm. Please say a few prays for Devin.

saw on the news that although the arm was mostly in tact they could not re attach it

way to cross the line between ignorant redneck and total douchebag ... i'm pretty sure if this was your kid (heaven forbid you actually have children) that you wouldn't exactly appreciate someone telling you how dumb he is for getting attacked by an alligator ...

thanks for showing that some people simply need to be kicked in the skull

kids have been swimming there for years, obviously the gator lost his fear of people. Time to pray for everyone, not cast stones.

Prayers aren't the only thing..........I'll pray tonight more than once for him......Any word on how His parents are doing???? Mike, Pls keep us informed.....this is a problem I've thought about for years with my two older boys swiming in the Bayous. I always knew I'd get in trouble with a firearm on a wildlife refuge, but I wasn't willing to go on one without a gun and risk My KIDS to be bitten by a gator..........I wish them the Best!!!!!!!!!...........Tim

You really need to re-thingk what you just posted!! I mean the kid is 11 and he has lost his arm. The family I am sure is on the edge of losing it! And you come on here and talk about how you wouldn't be that dumb?!?!? You post something like this and you say that you wouldn't be that dumb!! The kid is 11 you are an adult who is dumb?? I'm sure if the kid made a mistake by swimming in an area with a gator this is a big lesson learned, we don't need you on here telling him he is dumb!!!!
I hope you sleep well, because anyone who says or even thinks things like you have posted has a LOT of trouble coming down the road!!! Don't ever thing you are smarter or better than others who go through terrible stuggles!! This 11 year old kid is going to have to struggle with this all his life and you took a shot at him, just remember that!!

I hope Devin and his family handle this with grace and just keep on truckin'. Bad things happen to strong people, so I hope they find some good in it, mean while I heard that a cousin is setting up a Capitol One bank account for people to donate to, to help out with the medical bills. Mike, if you could find out how to help out I would love to send a few bucks there way.

CapitalOne Bank has set up an account for donations to help with medical cost and a prostetic arm.

Gator was almost 11 foot long. They saw it coming but couldn't get out of the water fast enough.

I heard yesterday on the radio, that when the first cop got to the scene that Devin was calm and not crying. He asked the policeman to find his paintball gun. He then asked the policeman if he had anything to drink. The policeman told him that it would be a little while until they got back to his car. Then a good samaritan came along with a four wheeler and brought him to the ambulance. DOESN'T sound like a dumb kid to me, but a tough little soldier. I am going to my capital one today and donating money to him. I live in Raceland along Bayou Lafourche where I see kids swimming pretty often, and anytime I see an alligator in the bayou, I "relocate" him. I will gladly take a disturbing the peace ticket to save a kid or someone's pet's life. Devin is in my family's prayers.
Desi Babin

An idiot on here found a way to turn this situation worse. I surf this site a lot looking at the post and scanning the classifieds for deals and it never ceases to amaze me that a really good post can go so bad. I know everyone has an opinion and not all will agree, but to post something negative about this boy and his family at a time when outdoorsman usually come together is just plain ignorant. I hope I never have to experience anything like this family is going through. Just my .02.

Thoughts and Prayers go out to the family. I figured I'd add something I've witnessed out in the Rigolets this summer. There's a 10 foot alligator that I've seen all around the Rigolets area (and another about 5 feet)...from Fort Pike area, middle of the ship channel and as far out as the train bridge. I've also caught some good sized sharks in less than 2 feet of water out there...I've seen a lot of people tubing behind boats in the same areas where I've seen sharks and gators.

Just a word of caution. Please keep an eye out. I'd hate to hear about something like this happening out there.

If anyone has gator tags...I know the season is coming up in a few weeks...email me and I'll shoot you a map of where I normally see the gators if you're interested.

Same word of caution for those tubing on the East Pearl. I had one over 10 feet try to attack a bass that I was reeling in recently. The splashing really got his attention.

at least in LA the trappers get a genorous allotment of tags for gators....look at all the reports of people getting attacked in FL and they dont get near the tags LA does...this is the first case i remember hearing about a gator attacking a human in LA lots of pets but i caint remember another case involving a human...sad situation and lucky it doesnt happen more..i know when i was that age i was always going somewhere i shouldent have been my buddies and i used to go back in the woods and swim in the bayou and i know there are gators there...didnt care at the time...and the gator is a top predator

bro. you just dont get it. let me help you. when someone if in trouble. maybe going to die. you just dont say anything other than ill pray for yall or is there anything i can do to help. the only thing that could help is to just retract you post. and this will go away,

hey mike when my son levi was dieing of cancer your company sent levi a packet with a hat and such he really enjoyed that and brightnd his day may be yall could do the same for him

stan thomas

Yeah it is pretty dumb to go into their environment. I guess i'm an idiot. I am out of a boat right now so the only way I can check my crab traps is wade out in neck deep water in an alligator infested swamp. I am always aware of the alligators and keep them in check. When I see one stareing at me I will keep my eyes on him. It is time to get near the shore when it goes under. Chances are when it gets to to around you are it will pop its ugly head up. Thats when you charge it and punch it. They will run from ya. They are pu$$ they'll get scared and run from ya. The kid had to of been splashing around.11 footer that must of been some pretty belly skin.

Alligators that are fed do not get scared and run. I believe this was the problem if people were feeding it. Go deep into the marsh and swamp where they don't see many people and yes, they will get scared and run.

Fish the Stevensville area around the camps where they are used to people and they don't get scared. We used to feed them as kids. Can remember when the water was over the wharf my grandfather would skin his catfish in the mornings and drop the heads on the wharf for the gators to eat. He was at the point in his life that he had hunted enough and he would pretty much only kill fish and crabs. He looked at all the animals around the camp as his pets and he fed them all. We would feed them as well. Now that I look back on it, probably wasn't a good idea. I know the gators over there were not scared of us. Thankfully they hunted it pretty hard during the season and removed most of the bigger ones each year.

But I believe this is what happens when you feed wild animals. Same thing with bears, they lose their fear of man and thats when they become dangerous.

Truely a tragic story. I hope I never have to see my children go through this. He and his family will definitely be in our prayers.

Swamp, Why don't you rent your motor from ironman? Ya'll are two peas in a pod!

Look buddy, i read ur posts and can't believe it. Do you think this kid or his family need to be told that what the kid did was dumb, come on, do you have a conscience.

Let me ask you this, if ur kid cut his arm off with your chop saw would you go tell him "Boy was that stupid, what were you thinkin." There is no need to rub it in, a mistake was made end of story, you just don't do that to someone. Does it make u feel like a big iron man to be judging the situation and making the kid or his family feel worse.

Why don't you swallow ur pride, show some compassion and remove that post before someone close to the stuation reads it and has to feel even more terrible

Trout assassin, It's hard to reason with heartless people! This is just the type of people who will pass ya by when your boat is dead, come creeping in your fishing spot when you are catching and throw litter in our waters. They have no heart, no guts and certainly, no compassion for their fellow man.

Iron man, just who do you think you're kidding? To say you were just calling it a dumb decision and not that the boy was dumb is a huge load of BS and you know it. I guess you don't have kids, because I can't imagine anyone with kids of their own making a statement like that. By the way, the gator was 11 feet long, so it was probably the only one in the area. Smaller gators will stay somewhat together but when they reach that size they pretty much claim their own turf. Point is, it may not have been real obvious that the gator was there. It's common to see a group of smaller gators in the water, but how often do you see a real big one? I agree with those that say you need to withdraw your comment that it was a "dumb" decision. No matter how you try to rationalize it, it's still an insult. That's a child your talking about. You simply do not need to say it was dumb. Period. And to defend what you said is just not right. What if that kid or his family looks at this site some day and comes across your comments? If you do have kids of your own, how would you feel if someone said those things about your child? And YES, IT IS ABOUT THE CHILD!
Swamp_Matt, Same goes for you. I'm not saying either you or Iron Man are idiots, just that y'all need to think about how it comes across. This thing struck a nerve with me because I have an 11 year old daughter and honestly, if I ever heard somebody use "dumb" and her in the same sentence(whether it was about a decision or not) I'd want to snap his neck. Not saying I would act on that, but I'd want to. By the way, charging an 11 foot gator? You gotta be kidding. I call BS on that one! That's like scrapping with a bear. And how can you say something positive about the gator? Pretty belly skin? I'm sure the boy and his family wouldn't appreciate positive comments about the alligator! Come on y'all, think before you post stuff like that!

Devin is the focus here!! our prayers are including him and his family!

poor little fellow. he could get in real trouble with infection in the following days/weeks. Not to mention what kind of blood loss he must have had. I understood the arm was taken off at the shoulder? Is this correct? I know he must be getting hardcore Iv antibiotics and he has youth on his side so hopefully he will make it through. Prayers to he and his family in this nightmare.

why do we protect these animals anywhere close to where children can be? Just get rid of them. Ironman you have no class. My prayers and some bucks will go out to this poor kid, God Bless Devin and his family.

lets just pray for devin and do whatever we can to help him....if anyone knows how i can transfer some money from my account to his i would appreciate it(do i just need to give the bank his name to do it?)....iron man pls get rid of the post whether we understand you or not..it seems like the right thing to do.

Hope the best for Devin , if he wouldn't have lost his arm I would think he would have lost his life by beeing drowned by the gator ----------

good grief i can not belive you wrote i bet that 11.ft gator had some pretty belly skin good grief i am just lost for words.

mike i know you meant well by this post but please either delete it or iron man and swamp matts post please

you're so right! if i was that kid, i would look at losing my arm as a blessing ...

again, thanks for showing that some people just need to be kicked in the teeth

Iron Man, YOU GET IDIOT OF THE YEAR! TB, You Are next!

I have always had back and forth arguments on here about hunting stuff, everyone is going to have a different opinion. I have always thought that this site is proly the best outdoor site on the the web and still do. This is a new low for the losers or this site. Mike puts a post on here to let people know of a little 11 year old kid who is in a terrible situation, his family is in an even more painfull situation because they know the true extent of what this injury means. I even heard the kid asked his mom "how and I going to play my video games"?

No, the people of this site don't come together and start talking about keeping this kid in our prayer, or trying to raise money to help ( thanks for those who did just that)!! Instead, we have the select few who have to boost their ego up by knocking others down and then defending themselves to the death!!
Now this post has turned into the all to farmiliar argument like so many other posts on here!!

All I have to say is the dirt bag that started all this will get what is coming to him unless he just comes clean and admits that he was way out of line by posting his first post, and that goes for the other total moron who said gators run away and if not just punch them in the nose!!

I mean really swamp fat, an 11 year old kid punching an 11 ft. gator in the nose, in the words of the great one, "your an idiot, what do you think of that?!?!?!?

troutman your lucky your still functioning with as dumb as you are...your two cents equal up to nothing...think before you speak my brotha..... i usually dnt like to resort to insulting someone but geez...lord forgive me.

paddle master you can make donations by going to any CapitalOne Bank. Aamco Transmission in Slidell, Covington and Metairie, where Dunn works, will match a percentage of any donation receipt brought in or donate to the fund a portion of their labor charge for any service.

Devin is doing pretty good considering what he has endured. He was on a ventalator for awhile but I think (not sure) that he may now be off of the ventalator.

this post needs to be pulled before one of his family reads it.....completely adding insult to injury. how many of you pathedic bastards saying it was stupid would tell your son, laying in the hospital bed, that he was stupid for going do that? .......unbelievable. souds like a brave, super tough lil' bugger to me.

IF you post their real names maybe they will think about it next time they speak.

Looks like Ironman pulled his original IDIOT post. It's about time you did something right! Thank you.

First off i want to thank iron man for pulling his post, he made a mistake but atleast he somewhat fixed it.

Now to troutman, you went and posted something like that after u saw the stir?? Atleast ironman said something without thinking and yeah maybe defended it too long but you come on here and make a thought out decision to make your comment. I tell you what i sure would like to get a hold of you in my backyard. You are a heartless SOB

Now i applaud those looking to help out and the boy and family are in my prayers.

I AM ASKING THE POSTMASTER TO PULL THIS POST!! THis post would hurt the family and can do no good, if they pull all the other posts please pull this one. Mike please once this is done, repost and we can then give donation information and do what the post is intended

If you think the posts on here were bad, you should read the posts on nola.com. I did a search the other day to try to find more info on the attack and came across an article there. They actually had people posting that they felt more sorry for the gator that lost its life. They also stated that they killed the gator for no reason.

Lets see, albeit a slight chance, there was a chance that they could possibly reattach his arm, I think thats certainly worth killing the gator. Not to mention killing that gator may have prevented a second tragedy.

I just don't understand the thinking of some people. I seriously doubt the kids knew there was an 11' gator in the pond. I don't know many people that would willingly swim in a pond or lake where a 11' gator is known to be present.

give me a break guys ...

obviously my sarcasm doesn't translate well over a message board ... i'll have to take that into account next time ... so let me go on record saying that i DO NOT in any way agree with iron man or troutman ... come on fellas sarcasm is the language of the future ... lol

thanx mike i will do just that

Oh Lawd, Here we go again!

same guy diffrent name one of the three boofuns

hes just looking for comments he is a sick person i will not comment any more. thats all he is looking for,, wish mike would just frazzlin delete the post

Since we can't seem to focus on prayers and news I guess I will put in my two cents. Anyone here that has never went swing or tubing in a river or lake or pond can't be from Louisiana!!! Give me a break I know yall can't all be transplants???

So Devins crime is he went in the water to swim. Have yall really never been swimming outside of a swimming pool. What about in the Gulf of Mexico with the stingrays and the sharks??? Unbelievable.

And with regards to the idiots posting about the poor poor Alligator. That is really scary. Those idiots are allowed to vote. God helps us. What has this country come too.