The Deadly Swamp

Losing his arm to an alligator was just the start of a hiker's three-day ordeal

- Derek Burnett

The stars burn brilliant over Lake Manatee as the man backstrokes through the dark water. He's exhausted and frustrated by his lack of progress, but he believes he can swim all night if he must. Then a bristling intuition creeps upon him and he sits up in the water and peers to his left. Just two feet away lurks the unmistakable shape of an alligator's snout, the slitted eye yellowy in the starlight. The man whirls onto his stomach and flings out his hands to swim, but the gator strikes, seizing his right forearm in its teeth. The predator twists its powerful body, snapping the man's arm back at the elbow. For a moment the man's world goes black, as if lightning has struck inside his head. Then, still firmly holding its prey, the reptile dives, looking to drown its victim in the silent midnight depths of the lake.

THE WAY ERIC MERDA saw it, the past two weeks had been one long, crazy battle with God. The 43-year-old father of seven had always had his struggles-addiction, street fights, run-ins with the law-but things had recently become clear. For one thing, he'd come to accept that his relationship with the mother of five of his children was over. For another, he'd begun to realize he was running with a dangerous crowd. Intelligent, creative and spiritual, a self-described weirdo, Merda knew he'd been on the wrong track. God was telling him to clean up his act and live up to his gifts.