TLS Cracksmoker of the Week

This news story was posted last night on the Orlando Sentinel's website:

MAN ON CRACK WHEN ALLIGATOR ATTACKED

LAKELAND -- A man who was attacked by an alligator this morning was naked and smoking crack at the time, Polk County deputies who rescued him said today.

The alligator had the man in his jaws when deputies arrived at Lake Parker in Lakeland about 4 a.m. today. They were called by nearby residents who reported hearing a man yelling for help.

Evidently, the Cracksmoker, a 45-year-old named Adrian J. Apgar, was tangled in the gator's toothy embrace for some time before the police arrived. One of his arms was hanging by a thread, the other badly broken, and his left leg had suffered "trauma". You pause for a moment to imagine fighting off an alligator - naked, chewed up, in the dark. But you can't imagine it because you haven't smoked crack lately. Me neither. But my instincts tell me whatever it is that makes crack cocaine so lethal-slash-appealing could be the same heady ingredient that gave Mr. Adrian J. Apgar such uncommon pluck.

Perhaps most remarkably, police arrived and heard Apgar yell, "I have two broken arms and an alligator's got me pinned. I can't move. Please help me." The man has ice water in his veins! He's chewed up, cracked out, naked as baby Jesus, yet he still has the wherewithal to (almost) correctly assess his wounds.

After deputies won what the Sentinel describes as a "tug-of-war" in a dark swamp with the alligator, Apgar underwent surgery to reattach his arm. Crash Derby and I at The Long Shot say bravo to Mr. Apgar, for never has a Cracksmoker so clearly earned back his severed arm.