In a tragic turn of events, an alligator has snatched a woman out of her canoe and mauled her to death. All of this happened in front of her horrified but helpless husband.
The two had been canoeing on a lake in Florida. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, authorities responded to an alligator attack in Tiger Creek near Lake Kissimmee on May 6. They found based on reports that the reptile attacked the woman while she was in her canoe.
It managed to drag her into the water, where it later killed her. Authorities later recovered her body from the creek.
"The woman was later recovered from the water and is declared deceased," the department said. Following the tragic death, authorities contracted an alligator trapper to the scene. Members of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were also on hand along with first responders and police.
Alligator Attack
She and her husband had been kayaking when the attack happened. CBS affiliate WKMG reports the alligator "grabbed her out of the canoe. [Her husband] tried to fight the gator off. We're at the last place he saw her. He left the paddle here where he last saw her."
Authorities used a helicopter to find her body. They "spotted the victim floating in the water and FWC officers recovered her from the water, where she was pronounced deceased."
At this time, authorities weren't willing to reveal the identity of the deceased.
"The incident remains under investigation and no additional details are available," the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said. There's been more than 480 unprovoked alligator attacks since 1948 in Florida. Still, most attacks are human driven, according to a study.
"I wondered if crocodilians had an unwarranted reputation for attacks the same way snakes do," said Mark Teshera, lead author of the study and a biology professor at Center College, in a press release. "It was important to create a ranking system for risky human behaviors because it showed that the overwhelming majority of bites stemmed from some level of humans engaging in risky behavior in places where alligators live. Therefore, we should not call these encounters 'attacks.'"
