HOUSTON, Texas – A scuba diver suddenly found his head in the jaws of a 13-foot saltwater crocodile while spear fishing in Cancun, Mexico.

“I just got this hand and kept punching it inside the mouth,” Jonathan Schoeneman told KPRC News. “And then with this hand, I was hooking his eyes. I could hear my bones cracking, just cracking all the time.”

A friend pulled Schoeneman back into the boat and raced to shore.

After a 12-day hospital stay, Jonathan Schoeneman’s head is now held together by metal plates, screws, and 200 stitches.

Schoeneman is a Houston native, but lives in Cancun, where he’s a scuba diver instructor.

He says he’s seen that same crocodile in the area where he was diving, and he might see it again.

It swam away after Schoeneman beat himself free – and he says he’ll be back in the water as soon as his wounds heal.

“This does not scare me at all. I’ve been lost at sea, almost drowned countless times, I’ll never stop,” Schoeneman said.