A 74 year-old Florida man is being hailed as a hero after surveillance cameras captured him wrestling a puppy from the jaws of an alligator.

Richard Wilbanks, 74, of Estero sprinted into his outdoor pool to wrestle an alligator who had latched onto his 3 month-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Gunner, saving the canine from certain death.

“We were just out walking by the pond, and it came out of the water like a missile. I never thought an alligator could be that fast. It was so quick,” Wilbanks told CNN.

He went on to say that it was either adrenaline or instinct that kicked in and allowed him to do this.

“It was just a shock, it happened so fast,” Wilbanks told WBBH. “Instinct just took over and adrenaline kicked in and I just went right into the water after the gator and Gunner.”

“I just automatically jumped into the water,” Wilbanks said. He added that while holding onto the alligator wasn’t that difficult, prying open the jaws was “extremely hard.” He was left with “chewed up” hands, and he had to go to the doctor to get a tetanus shot.

Thankfully, Gunner was mostly unharmed, but he did have one puncture wound in his belly. The puppy was completely fine after a quick trip to the vet.

The daring rescue was caught on camera because of a partnership between the Florida Wildlife Federation and the fSTOP Foundation.

“We live on a shared landscape,” Meredith Budd of the wildlife federation told WINK. “We don’t just want to tolerate wildlife, but, rather, we want to thrive with wildlife on a shared landscape.”

Wilbanks stands by the mission, which is why he doesn’t want the alligator removed from the pond or killed.

“They’re part of nature and part of our lives,” he explained.

Though Wilbanks still takes Gunner for walks in the area, he keeps him on a leash and makes sure to keep him 10 feet from the pond’s edge. After coming so close to losing his beloved puppy forever, he is not about to let anything like that happen again.

“Our pets, they’re just like family to us,” he said.