Florida Man Saves Beloved Dog from Gator's 'Death Roll' The hunt is now on for the large...

Mike McCoy has read up a bit on alligator attacks and what to do if you find yourself in one—and good thing, because he was able to put that knowledge to use this week. McCoy and Jake, his 8-year-old chocolate Lab, were taking a stroll Tuesday near a pond behind a middle school in Holiday, Fla., when Jake stopped to check out a bush. That’s when a gator leaped out of the water, dragged Jake from the shore, and pulled him into the water. “He was in a death roll with that thing,” McCoy tells NBC News. That’s when he took action, implementing the gator tips he’d learned from his informal studies, sticking his thumb in the animal’s eye and picking it up out of the water so it couldn’t swim away with its mouth still clamped around Jake.