WASHINGTON — A 9-year-old boy is recovering after he was attacked by an alligator in Florida Thursday.

James Barney, Jr., 9, talked to reporters at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando Friday after he survived the attack while swimming in a lake in Kissimmee, Florida.

“I reached down to go grab it and I felt its jaw, I felt its teeth and I didn’t know that to do,” Barney said of the attack.

The boy said he reacted and hit the alligator.

“Finally I had enough strength to pry its jaw open a little,” he said.

The alligator bit him several times and there are about 30 different teeth marks, a hospital representative said.

Barney even got a souvenir from his experience. Doctors recovered one of the alligator’s teeth and Barney requested to keep it to “put it on a necklace.”

Watch Barney’s interview:

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