'I love him': Animal handler comes to rescue of alligator after it attacks her

An animal lover has gained praise of netizens for coming to rescue of an alligator after the reptile attacks her.

Lindsay Bull, an animal handler, was working at Scales & Tails in Salt Lake City,Utah which was hosting a kid’s birthday party.

As the children eagerly looked at an alligator in its cage with Bull, they were not expecting the horrifying shock they saw next.

The eight-foot alligator, known as Darth Gator — after the Star Wars theme — suddenly attacked its handler by clamping its jaws down on her hand.

As soon as the alligator attacked Bull, Donnie Wiseman, a visitor, jumped in the closure to rescue Lindsay Bull. Wiseman yelled "we've got trouble in here"and then immediately jumped into the water and climbed on top of the reptile to rescue Bull.

While the handler underwent surgery after the incident on Saturday and is "doing well", she is requesting authorities not to take any action against the reptile.

"I love him. He is like a member of my family," Bull said. "That is true of everybody who works there. Everybody loves Darth."

Darth Gater, she said, is trained for all commands and she has been working with him for more than three years now.

"We still enforce it strictly whenever somebody gets in with the gator but, of course, going forward, we will be back to strictly enforcing it with any interactions with the gator for that very reason,"Shane Richins, the company's owner, said.