A Florida man saved his six-year-old son on Friday by punching an alligator into submission after the beast clamped onto the child’s right arm.

The boy’s father, still reeling from the harrowing ordeal, told reporters he thinks it’s a “miracle” that not only does little Joey Welch still have his arm, it’s almost completely unharmed.

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The child fell off a pier into shallow waters as his father, Joseph Welch, was preparing to take him canoeing in Boynton Beach. Without warning, a large gator latched onto Joey’s right arm.

“So I ran in to the water, it was about waist deep,” Welch told WSVN-TV. “I had my son like this here, because I didn’t want to play tug-of-war with the alligator and get his arm ripped off. So while I’m doing that I started punching the alligator on top of the head as hard as I could.”

Another man who witnessed the struggle rushed over and began kicking the creature in the belly as Welch wrested his son free, stunningly without even any punctures on the arm.

“It’s a miracle,” he reportedly said.

The alligator was later killed by animal control authorities.

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This video is from WSVN-TV, aired Sunday, April 21, 2013.

WSVN-TV –

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Photo: Shutterstock.com.

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(H/T: Huffington Post)