A Long Island duffer seeking birdies and eagles on a Cancun golf course instead found a crocodile — and lost two fingers in the encounter. The horror unfolded when Edward Lunger hooked the ball to the left of the fairway at the lush Iberostar Cancun Golf Club in Mexico. “It was in the sand,” Lunger recalled. The 50-year-old engineer took a couple of practice swings and then chipped out of the bunker. He heard leaves rustle. “All of a sudden, his arm went back, and his head went back,” pal Mark Martin recalled. “I saw the crocodile leap up.” The angry female chomped down on Lunger’s left arm up to his elbow, using its tail and claws to drag Lunger to the sand, the men said. “She pulled me back and flipped me, and I went to the ground,” Lunger said. The 5-foot-8, 180-pound Holtsville resident managed to brace himself by getting a knee on the ground. “The crocodile was holding me down, and I pulled myself out,” he said. “I don’t remember even doing that.” Martin jumped out of his golf cart and, in an adrenaline-fueled act of courage, grabbed a 40-pound boulder and smashed it onto the monster’s head just as Lunger freed himself. “That’s when I used the opportunity to run with Eddie,” said Martin, 52, also of Holtsville. The men used golf towels to make a tourniquet. “I’m thinking my whole hand is off,” Lunger recalled. “I couldn’t feel my hand. It was like my whole body was on fire.” Paramedics took Lunger to a private hospital where, he claims, he was forced to pay the $17,800 bill up front before he could get treatment. The men, and two other friends, split the tab on their credit cards. Doctors managed to reattach Lunger’s index finger, but he lost his middle finger and most of his ring finger. “I don’t blame the crocodile,” Lunger said. But he does blame the golf course. Lunger says there were no warnings of raging reptiles. He does admit to stepping over yellow caution tape near the sandy area but thought nothing of it. “That means ‘Grounds under repair’ in America,” said Lunger, a veteran golfer with a 15 handicap. And crocs had gored golfers before on the course, staffers told Lunger, according to a Brooklyn federal court lawsuit he filed last month against Iberostar in the July 1 incident. The $2.25 million suit alleges that the firm — which charged Lunger $79 for the round — introduced crocodiles to the golf course “as a marketing tourist attraction and hence profit- enhancing lure.” Adding insult to the devastating injuries he faced, Lunger said Iberostar reps began pressuring him to sign papers absolving the resort of responsibility — and when that failed, it allegedly spread rumors that Lunger prompted the attack by teasing the croc with chicken. “We came with nothing,” Martin fumed. “We rented the clubs there. We [bought] the balls there. Where would we be getting chicken?”
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:14:56 +0000
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