New York, July 11 : A teenage boy from Florida kept his remarkable sense of humour alive even after sacrificing his arm to save his own life from an alligator.

Trapped in the vise-like jaws of an alligator, Kaleb Langdale faced a stark choice - give up his life, or give up his arm.

"He knew he was losing (his arm). If it would have grabbed his body ... he would have drowned," the New York Daily News quoted his sister, Rebecca, as telling the Fort Myers News-Press.

"So he just took his feet, buried his feet in the alligator's head and just pushed so that he could get it free."

"Once it popped loose," Kaleb swam to the dock where his friends pulled him ashore and tended to him before paramedics arrived, she said.

At the hospital, the plucky 17-year-old masked his despair at losing the lower portion of his right arm with jokes.

"Well, it looks like you're not gonna be the only left-handed person in the family," Langdale said to his sister.

"He's making jokes. The first thing he told my mom when she arrived on the scene was, `At least it didn't get my (left) arm. I can still drive my airboat because the airboat is powered with the left.'" Rebecca said.

Langdale, who is known as Fred to his buddies, was swimming Monday in the Caloosahatchee River when the 11-foot gator suddenly attacked.

"The gator was about two feet away from him, just came straight at him," Matthew Baker, a friend said.

Another of his friend Gary Beck, who was on the shore when the incident happened, said that the alligator came after Langdale as soon it saw him.

"On top of the water, as fast as he could pedal, his tail was wagging back and forth, he was coming," he said.

His friends told WBBH-TV that the next thing that they saw was Langdale pop out of the water, screaming "My arm is gone!"

While Langdale was rushed to a Fort Myers hospital, Florida game officials hunted down and killed the alligator to retrieve his arm but officials said that it was too damaged to reattach. (ANI)