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South Carolina: In a tragic incident, a woman was killed by an alligator on Tuesday while walking her dog near a lagoon bordering a golf course in the United States. Shockingly, the reptile guarded her body, preventing rescuers from approaching.
According to USA Today, the police arrived at the scene upon receiving the information and found the unresponsive woman near the water. They were confronted by the alligator, which was protecting her body and interpreting the rescue operation.
Once the alligator was removed, the rescue operation resumed, and the cops were able to recover the woman’s body. The body was sent for a postmortem examination.
The victim, a 69-year-old resident of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, was found dead at the edge of the lagoon, as confirmed by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
“Rescue efforts were made and an alligator appeared and was guarding the woman, interrupting emergency efforts,” the office said in a statement.
The statement also mentioned that it was the second fatal attack in the Beaufort County in less than a year. The first attack occurred in August last year in which an 88-year-old woman was attacked and killed by a giant alligator in nearby Sun City.
Notably, alligators are very common in the southeast US, especially Florida is filled with these predators.
According to CNN, there are approximately 5 million alligators living in the wild across 10 states in the Southeast and beyond, including the southeastern tip of Oklahoma. However, fatal alligator attacks are rare.
In Florida, which has the highest alligator population in the United States with over 1 million, there have been an average of six unprovoked bite incidents per year between 1948 and 2021, as reported by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Out of the 442 recorded cases, 26 resulted in human fatalities.
