Despite alligators being a pretty common sight in Florida, unprovoked alligator attacks are pretty rare.
So when a 72-year-old man lost a portion of his right leg to an aggressive alligator at an RV park last Friday, people were shocked.
When the animal was later spotted with the man’s foot dangling from its mouth, it was downright horrifying.
The unidentified man lost his leg from the knee down outside his home at the Great Outdoors RV and Golf Resort in Brevard County, reports NBC affiliate WESH.
The man was airlifted to hospital after the massive reptile chomped off his leg, while Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) officers and Brevard County sheriff’s deputies arrived on scene to assess the situation and track down the gator.
The officers clocked the alligator in a nearby canal, following it with rifles.
But when the animal came to the water’s surface, they were horrified to see a human foot clearly protruding from the gator’s mouth.
In video captured by WESH cameras, the alligator is seen surfacing. The outlet reports that officers fired four shots, killing the alligator. Another, smaller alligator was also exterminated.
“After that an FWC officer retrieved what was clearly a foot and part of the leg,” the announcer says in the video voiceover, adding that they chose to omit the grisly footage of the limb retrieval out of respect for the victim.
“They did get the leg. It was with the gator that they know bit him. So they’ve got both gators that were in that pond which they have to do, unfortunately. It’s what has to be done,” park resident Sharon Maloney told WESH.
Brandon Fisher, a spokesman for Gatorland, told WSVN: “Hopefully nobody was feeding this alligator in this RV park, but if that were the case, and that alligator has lost its fear of humans, it’s gonna come closer — and whether you have the food or don’t have the food that day, that could be the difference between what might have happened.”
According to the FWC, a Floridian has a one-in-3.1 million chance of being seriously injured in an unprovoked alligator attack. Each year there are an average of eight unprovoked alligator attacks causing serious injury.