Felicitie Gillette's left arm is covered in bruises, lacerations and scratches as a result of the bite.
It was a life-or-death struggle for a Florida woman who was attacked by an alligator earlier this month.
Felicitie Gillette's ordeal began when the 24-year-old went swimming in a Florida lake.
“I was about waist deep," she told Inside Edition. "I was wading in there and next thing you know, this mouth was just clenching down on my arm. He bit me and then he let go and then he latched on to my arm and started like moving his head back and forth.
"And then he was trying to bring me down. My head didn't go underwater, but I was kinda going under."
Somehow, she freed herself from the jaws of the 6-foot gator. She then ran out of the water and called 911.
“I could've died; it could've taken my arm off," she said. "I feel really lucky that that didn't happen."
Gillette is homeless, and was using the lake to bathe at the time of the attack. She sees her near-death experience as a sign from above.
"I feel like God's trying to tell me something and I should probably listen to him," she said, adding a higher power is telling her "to get my life right."
The attack came just two days the death of 45-year-old kindergarten teacher Cassandra Cline, who was dragged into a lake by an alligator in Hilton Head, South Carolina, while she was walking her dog.
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