An alligator attack victim in South Carolina thought he was going to die. Here's how he escaped and survived.

Out of air and pinned by an alligator to the bottom of the Cooper River in South Carolina, Will Georgitis decided his only chance to survive might be to lose his arm. The alligator had fixed its jaws around Georgitis' arm and after he tried to escape by stabbing it with the screwdriver he uses to pry fossilized shark teeth off the riverbed, the gator shook the diver and dragged him 50 feet down, Georgitis told The Post and Courier.

"I knew I was going to die right then and there," he told the Charleston newspaper.

The alligator attacked Georgitis on April 15 as he surfaced from his dive, nearly out of air. He put up his right arm to defend his head. The gator latched onto it and Georgitis wrapped himself around the reptile in case it tried to twist the arm.