Can you blame James Barney for jumping in when the mood captured him? Although that wasnt the only thing to grab hold of the boy in that moment. He was swimming, and we were just sitting up here, and we heard him screaming, and then we didnt know what happened, so we decided to go over there and there was a big alligator at least 5 feet away from him, a 911 caller said, WESH-TV in Orlando reported. It really amazed me what happened, Barney recalled to the station. At first I just thought someone was playing with me.