Alligator: Bite: Leg

The jaws ground through boot, muscle and bone before something scared it off. The doctor looks at what's left below your knee, then looks at his saw, and doesn't say anything at all.

• Carried everywhere, the leg takes no weight whatsoever
• Laudanum haze: slurred speech and drifting attention for 3 days
• /me lies gray-faced under a blanket, the shape of the splinted leg all wrong beneath it

Recovery Weeks under a surgeon's daily care, and the leg may come off yet, untreated, swamp fever finishes what the jaws began.·Doctor, urgently

The crush of the bite snapped your shinbone like green wood. The punctures bleed freely, and beneath them the leg bends where no leg should.

• Splinted leg, crutch or shoulder to lean on for 7 days
• No riding without help mounting; no sprinting at all
• /me grits their teeth as the splint takes the weight, knuckles white on the crutch

Recovery A week splinted under a doctor's eye before you hobble; twice that and a crooked shin if you tough it out.·Doctor, urgently

A tooth caught the meat of your calf and tore it half loose when the gator wrenched away. The muscle knots up like a fist and will not answer you.

• Dragging limp, the toes of that foot skim the ground for 5 days
• Stitches front and back; they tear if you run
• A puckered double scar that aches in wet weather, which in Lemoyne is always

Recovery 5 days stitched and poulticed with a doctor, 8 limping without, and it festers fast if the swamp mud stays in.·Doctor, urgently

It had your leg and it had a direction: deep water. You went under twice before your knife found its eye, and every puncture has drunk its fill of bayou.

• Deep punctures both sides of the calf, each opened and drained daily
• Coughing up swamp water for a day; voice like a rusted gate
• /me shivers by the fire, leg propped, wounds weeping through the wrapping

Recovery 4 days of carbolic washes with a doctor; without one, count on fever by the third night.·Doctor required

A full set of teeth punched through your calf, top and bottom, two neat rows of holes a doctor will want kept open to drain, which hurts worse than the bite did.

• Heavy limp for 4 days; stairs are an event
• Daily wound-packing RP, bring whiskey, for the wound or for you
• Twin arcs of puncture scars that no one ever believes came from a fish

Recovery 4 days with a doctor's draining and packing, 6 without and a fever gamble.·Doctor required

The jaws closed over your boot and ankle and squeezed until the leather groaned. Nothing broke outright, but the joint has swollen up like a saddle horn.

• Boot won't go on that foot for 3 days; hobbling in a sock
• No sprinting, no jumping down from wagons or horses
• /me eases the swollen ankle out of the stirrup with both hands

Recovery 3 days wrapped and raised with a doctor's liniment, 5 if you keep walking on it.·Doctor required

The punctures aren't deep, but the bayou got into every one of them, black mud, rot-water and whatever the gator had for breakfast. The redness is already spreading.

• Wounds scrubbed with carbolic, roleplay the cussing
• Low fever and clammy sweats for 2 days
• Watch-the-wound RP: red streaks mean a fast ride to the doctor

Recovery 3 days of clean dressings with a doctor; untreated, this is how folk lose legs a week later.·Doctor required

It bit through your calf and yanked, and something in your knee pulled with it. Punctures in front, a joint that clicks and buckles behind.

• Knee gives out on rough ground, walk with a stick for 4 days
• Punctures stitched; no kneeling, no crouching behind cover
• /me tests the knee, winces, and picks a longer way around

Recovery 4 days strapped with a doctor's care, 6 without, and the click may visit you in old age.·Doctor required

Teeth went through the boot leather and into the meat. It let go when you hollered, and now every step squelches warm.

• Limp for 2 days; boot cut open at the doctor's or ruined for good
• Stitches in the calf, no wading back in after it
• /me pours a thin red stream out of their boot and stares at it

Recovery 2 days stitched and dry, 4 if the wound stays wet and angry.·Doctor advised

It clamped, held you still for one long heartbeat, and let go, a warning, not a meal. The crush bruising goes bone-deep even where the teeth didn't.

• Deep bruising: stiff-legged walk for 2 days
• Shallow punctures cleaned with whiskey, the good kind, sadly
• A ring of tooth-marks around the calf you'll be showing off at the saloon

Recovery 2 days of rest and witch hazel, 3 if you insist on the long patrols.·Doctor advised

Two teeth caught and dragged as you tore free, plowing furrows down your calf. Ugly, bloody, and shallower than it looks.

• Long stitched furrows, no running for 2 days or they open
• Trouser leg soaked; the laundry woman will ask questions
• /me walks stiff-ankled, trouser leg dark from knee to boot

Recovery 2 days stitched with a doctor, 4 untreated with a wetter, angrier scar.·Doctor advised

It mouthed your leg the way a dog mouths a stick it hasn't decided to break, bruising crush, a couple of punctures, and a lesson about where you water your horse.

• Tender calf: favor the leg for a day and a half
• Two punctures cleaned and plugged; keep them dry
• Newfound and vocal opinions about Lemoyne water crossings

Recovery A day or two of light duty; a doctor visit buys peace of mind about infection.·Doctor advised

The boot took the worst of it, shredded from cuff to heel, and beneath the ruin your leg carries only shallow punctures and the memory of the pressure.

• One ruined boot: hobble on mismatched footwear until you buy new
• Shallow punctures cleaned; a slight limp for a day
• /me wiggles their toes through the hole where a boot used to be

Recovery A day of soreness; the boot is beyond any doctor's help.·Doctor advised

The teeth raked instead of caught, parallel scrapes down the shin that bleed dramatic and heal quick.

• Stinging scrapes under the wrapping for a day
• Good excuse to sit near the fire and be tended to
• A story that gains one foot of gator every time you tell it

Recovery A day, if that, wash it well and forget it.·No doctor needed

A single peg of a tooth punched a neat hole in your calf as you wrenched free. One hole, one plug of cloth, one very fast exit from the shallows.

• Small deep puncture, keep it clean for 2 days, punctures fester
• Slight hitch in the stride, mostly for sympathy
• /me presses a thumb over the little hole like a cork in a bottle

Recovery 2 days of clean dressings; punctures reward carelessness with fever.·Doctor advised

The jaws slammed shut on mostly boot and trouser, and the pressure left a bone-deep ache instead of holes. Your leg works; it just complains.

• Deep bruise: stiff first steps after any long sit for 2 days
• Boot leather scored with tooth marks, proof for the doubters

Recovery A couple of days of soreness; liniment if you're soft, whiskey if you're honest.·No doctor needed

It lunged, you leapt, and the two of you traded a boot heel for a tooth graze. You came out of the shallows at a speed you didn't know you had.

• A nicked ankle, cleaned in one minute
• Soaked to the hip and smelling of bayou for the rest of the day
• /me keeps a good ten feet between themselves and any water wider than a puddle

Recovery By morning it's a story, not a wound.·No doctor needed

The jaws got your boot; your foot, by some bayou miracle, was already leaving it. The gator kept the leather. You kept everything else.

• One boot down, walk half-shod until you find a cobbler
• Unscratched but rattled: flinch at every splash for a day

Recovery Nothing to heal but pride and the cost of new boots.·No doctor needed

The teeth clicked shut on your trouser leg and tore the cuff clean off. The splash you made getting out will be talked about longer than the bite.

• One flapping trouser leg, tailor or shame, your choice
• /me holds up the torn cuff, measuring it against an imaginary, enormous jaw

Recovery None needed, the trousers were the only casualty.·No doctor needed

The jaws closed exactly where your leg had been half a heartbeat before, and clamped onto the driftwood you'd been standing on instead. You crossed the last ten feet of shallows in what witnesses swear was three steps.

• Not a mark on you, the driftwood died a hero
• Free drinks tonight if anyone who saw it does the telling
• /me sets one boot on the gnawed driftwood like a hunter with a trophy

Recovery Nothing to recover but your hat, which is still out there.·No doctor needed