Teen says baggy pants saved him from seven-foot alligator

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A St. Petersburg boy narrowly escaped an alligator attack because the gator bit his baggy pants instead of his leg, police said.

Seventeen-year-old Kendrick Williams was walking home from work Monday night and taking a shortcut near a pond at the Reserve Apartments in south St. Petersburg. "I heard the hiss and then I looked down and I seen the alligator on the ground," said Williams. "I ran. I didn't look back."

Williams said the alligator appeared to be six to seven feet long. However, one witness told St. Petersburg police the gator was 10 feet long, said police spokesman Mike Puetz.

The gator took a bite out of Williams' baggy pants, tearing large holes in the fabric.

Williams' mom thinks the pants might have saved her son's life. "That was the advantage of wearing baggy pants that day," said Tanita Murray. "It's dangerous. If a toddler had been standing there, it (the alligator) would have bit his neck or head."

Wildlife officers told St. Petersburg police there are so many gators in the pond at the Reserve Apartments, they couldn't determine which one tried to bite Williams. The apartment complex would not let a reporter on the property to ask managers about the problem.