North Naples man survived gator attack thanks to his neighbors

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North Naples man survived gator attack thanks to his neighbors

Rick Fingeret never saw the alligator coming.

Not until it was too late.

“I looked up and I saw this thing coming after us with its mouth open,” the North Naples resident says. “You don’t want to ever see that.”

The alligator bit down on his right leg — hard — and wouldn’t let go. For several painful, terrifying minutes, Fingeret thought this might be the end for him.

And if two neighbors hadn’t seen him there on the ground, waving and yelling, it probably would’ve been the end, he says. He’d most likely be dead.

Rick Fingeret (middle) poses with Walt Rudder and Paula Keegan, the two neighbors who saved him from an April 2024 alligator attack in North Naples.

That’s why Fingeret nominated those neighbors, Walt Rudder and Paula Keegan, for

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to win tickets to see comedian Jay Leno. They won the tickets and attended Leno’s show and a meet-and-greet Thursday, Feb. 6, at Hertz Arena.

Fingeret wanted to repay his neighbors — now close friends — anyway he could.

“They saved my life,” he says. “I wouldn’t be here today without those two. They are truly heroes.”

‘I was scared sh—less’

The alligator attack happened while Fingeret was walking his Labrador retrievers, Shelby and Beans, in the gated community The Quarry. It was about 8:30 p.m. Friday, April 19. The road was dark, but there were streetlights on the sidewalk, and Fingeret brought along a flashlight.

Suddenly, he felt his dogs strain against their leashes. That’s when he looked up.

“All of a sudden, this guy’s coming,” Fingeret says.

Just five feet away, an alligator raced toward him across the grass — about 30 feet from a nearby pond where gators usually swam and sunbathed on the bank. Fingeret had never seen an alligator that far from the water.

Read more: ‘We have a man down. An alligator is on him.’ Listen to 911 call for Naples gator attack

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North Naples resident Walt Rudder, right, poses with the alligator that attacked his neighbor, Rick Fingeret, in the gated community The Quarry on the night of April 19, 2024

The 11-foot gator moved quickly through the shadows — its mouth wide open and full of big, white teeth.

Fingeret tried to back away and escape, but instead he fell onto the ground. And then the gator was on him.

“I tripped in all the frenzy,” he says. “And the minute I fell — (he claps his hands together to simulate the gator’s jaws closing) … He got me.”

The second he fell, the alligator clamped down on his right leg and knee. Fingeret heard popping sounds as the gator’s blunt teeth punctured his skin.

“I was scared sh—less,” he says. “You’re like, ‘This is not good.’”

‘I wanted it to know that I was there. I had a lot of fight left in me.’

They lay like that for three to five minutes, he thinks: Fingeret scared and full of pain. The gator, expressionless, latched onto his leg, its cold reptilian eyes just a foot from his face.

The creature never made a sound.

“Every so often, you’d feel a lurch,” Fingeret says. “A tug. He wanted to move me, but he couldn’t. I was ******* than he had anticipated.”

Fingeret didn’t know what else to do, so he started punching the gator’s hard, jagged body armor. Poking its eyes with his fingers. Trying to pry open its massive jaws with his hands.

“I wanted it to know that I was there,” he says. “I had a lot of fight left in me. And I was very conscious of not passing out. Because the minute that would happen, I would be done.”

Nothing worked, though. The gator never let go.

“He never opened,” he says. “He just squeezed harder. More pressure.”

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Rick Fingeret and his dogs, Shelby and Beans, survived an April 2024 alligator attack in the North Naples gates community The Quarry.

The dogs stayed curled up next to him. Fingeret hadn’t released their leashes, somehow, throughout the entire attack. Shelby and Beans were terrified, but they never barked. Not once.

Fingeret kept yelling, hoping a neighbor or someone walking their dog would see him there on the grass near the sidewalk. As he lay there, he thought about what would happen next. Would he die? Would he lose his leg?

“It’s hard,” Fingeret says. “You’re sitting there thinking, ‘This is it.’”

Then he saw the *********** coming down the street.

Help arrives

Rudder and his friend Keegan were driving in Rudder’s Lincoln Nautilus when they saw Fingeret on the ground. He was pushed up on his side and waving frantically at them. So they stopped to help — not realizing what they were getting themselves into.

“We saw him and we thought he’d just fallen and he couldn’t get up,” Keegan says. “And the dogs were there.

“And then the dogs moved a little bit and we both looked at each other and said, ‘Holy sh–! It’s an alligator!’”

Rudder jumped out of the car and ran to Fingeret’s side, but he wasn’t sure what to do with the 11-foot gator clamped onto Fingeret’s leg. Luckily, Fingeret did.

It was amazing, Rudder says. Fingeret kept an almost supernatural level of calm and cool throughout the ordeal. Rudder credits the man’s analytical nature.

“Rick was in total control,” he says.

From the ground, bleeding, Fingeret told them to grab his dogs and take them to their car. “My adrenaline’s going,” Rudder says, “and so I picked up two 75- to 80-pound dogs. They had bloody paws.”

Keegan called 911, and Rudder returned to Fingeret to see what he could do next. And Fingeret already had a plan.

“Run him over!” he yelled. “Run him over!”

That’s exactly what Rudder did. He jumped behind the wheel of his Nautilus, backed up and threw the SUV into drive.

Throughout the attack, the gator watched them but never let go. “He was focused on his dinner,” Keegan says. “I don’t think he really cared what we were doing — until the end, when he realized we were going over him.”

Rudder rammed the SUV over the alligator’s midsection, just once, with its front wheels. And once was enough.

“Instantly, the gator released me,” Fingeret says. “And I was saved.”

After the alligator attack

Rudder was relieved when the gator let go and scurried away, he says. “The best thing I ever saw — we saw — was this alligator running down toward the pond.”

As soon as that happened, Rudder and Keegan rushed back to Fingeret’s side. And once again, Fingeret had a plan.

Rudder took off his shirt and tied it around Fingeret’s thigh to stop the bleeding, but the blood still flowed. So Fingeret told them to grab one of the dogs’ leashes from the car and make a tourniquet.

Fingeret has no idea how he kept such a clear head during the ordeal. He has no military training or anything like that.

“I’m a finance guy!” he says and laughs.

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Rick Fingeret (middle) and his dogs pose with Walt Rudder and Paula Keegan, the two neighbors who saved him from an April 2024 alligator attack in North Naples.

Eventually, they heard sirens coming down the street toward them. Sheriff’s deputies, firefighters and other emergency officials had arrived.

The emergency crews worked on Fingeret a while before transporting him to a nearby hospital and then — by helicopter — to the trauma center at Gulf Coast Medical Center for emergency surgery. The puncture wounds were so deep, Fingeret says, the doctors could see his tendons.

Two days later, he was released. Fingeret says he’s lucky. The gator’s bite never punctured his femoral artery, broke his bones or damaged his tendons.

After the attack, workers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission came and took away the gator. The friends aren’t sure what happened to the creature after that.

“Just go to the Macy’s luggage department,” Rudder says and grins.

Bonded for life: Alligator attack brings together new friends

Fingeret returned to the hospital a second time for more surgery, due to infection and other issues. But now he’s well on the road to recovery.

“I get stronger every day,” he says.

Sure, there’s lots of scarring — “I’m not entering a beauty contest,” he says and smiles — but Fingeret feels lucky to be alive and to have more time with his wife and two sons.

And he owes it all to two neighbors he barely knew before the gator attack.

That changed after that awful night.  Now they see each other all the time and occasionally have dinner together.

“Now we’re bonded for life,” Keegan says and laughs. “Whether we like it or not, we’re bonded for life.”

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Walt Rudder and his wife Patricia pose with comedian Jay Leno on Thursday, Feb. 6, at Hertz Arena. Walt Rudder and his friend Paula Keegan won tickets to Leno’s stand-up show and a meet-and-greet, as part of a Naples Daily News contest.

Keegan and Rudder, by the way, say they had a great time at the Leno show. They’re already big fans. Leno was performing as part of a headlining gig for the annual

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“Oh, it was absolutely fabulous!” Rudder says. “One of the best shows I’ve ever seen.”

They even got to meet the former The Tonight Show host and get a photo with him. “He’s a very, very gracious man,” Rudder says.

Fingeret wanted his new friends to get more recognition for their heroism. That’s why he nominated them for the Naples Daily News contest. But Keegan and Rudder say they probably did what anyone would do in that situation.

They saw a neighbor in need. And they jumped out of the car to help.

“We never gave it another thought, really,” Keegan says. “We just thought, ‘OK, we did what we had to do.’

“We were there — luckily we were there.”

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Rick Fingeret and his dogs, Shelby and Beans, survived an April 2024 alligator attack in the North Naples gates community The Quarry.

Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 or email *****@*****.tld. Follow or message him on social media:

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(@charles.runnells.7),

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and Threads (@crunnells1) and X (@CharlesRunnells)

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News:

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