INSANITY Hero neighbor saves friend from certain death by driving over 11ft alligator that had clamped onto his legs and was dragging him by the feet into a po

D

Deeb

Contributing Member
I'm camping on the shore of a lake that's swampy and just saw one glide by. The campground is in a state park and no one has ever had a negative incident with a gator here. Seems most of the problems are in suburban areas where their habitat is being encroached upon.
 
day late

day late

money? whats that?
Kathy in FL said:
They serve a real purpose in the environment. That said there is a short hunting season with tags you have to win by lottery unless that changed.
Click to expand...

My nephew did that a few times that I know of and may still be doing it. Here in Gainesville, we have Lake Alice on the U.F. campus. Gators are protected there. Gives them a chance to study them, or some such. Across from the lake is what I think of as frat row. There are a number of them there. Every year we will see stories about gators coming to visit the frat parking lots, and sometimes the frat grounds. FWC usually comes by and removes them.
 
T

Terrwyn

Veteran Member
Bones said:
Serious question from a Prarie Dweller:

How come hunters don't just kill em all and be done with it?
Click to expand...
I wondered the same thing so I checked. An interesting article on zooamerica.com about the alligators importance to the ecosystem. I can't remember all the details but it's worth a look if you are interested.
 
GingerN

GingerN

Veteran Member
Countrymouse said:
I assume it's like the coyotes here in the Atlanta area;

THE FOOL "Animal Rights" people say "DON'T hurt the poor ____________"(Fill in the blank).

Or "THEY were here first!"

(Coyotes are NOT native to Georiga)
Click to expand...
a friend shot one several years ago that was chasing her horses. She swore it was a wolf. I kept telling her no, wolves are not in this area. She sent me the picture of it. It was sprawled out across the cargo rack on her atv and hung off both ends. It didn't look like a pure wolf, nor a pure coyote, and certainaly was not a domestic dog. Come to find out, most of the coyotes in this part of the world are actually descendants of wolf and coyote hybrids, which would explain that boogers size. He was massive, and she isn't smart enough to use photoshop (neither am I so I am not being ugly). For reference, she was on a property that backs up to COE property on Lake Allatoona's south end.
 
naegling62

naegling62

Veteran Member
GingerN said:
Huntsville? Seriously?
Click to expand...
They just had another article up yesterday.

whnt.com

Increase in alligator sightings in lake at Huntsville apartment complex

People living in one Tennessee Valley apartment complex have a big problem on their hands and that problem is alligators.
whnt.com whnt.com


HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — People living in one Tennessee Valley apartment complex have a big problem on their hands and that problem is alligators.

Several have been spotted in the water at the Sunlake at Edgewater Apartments.

A massive alligator, predicted to measure 8 feet long, has been in the lake for quite some time according to the manager.

“So far that’s what we’ve discovered, and they have been here a long time,” said Dottie Frost, the Edgewater Owners Association Community Manager. “One of them is really big. It was growling and doing this weird thing with its tail.”

According to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the growl, or the bellow as it is known, is a mating call.


The conservation says that alligators can be seen sometimes swimming more often at this warm time of year.

But folks who live at the Sunlake have been seeing the massive animals a lot in these waters, especially within the past week.

“There’s a female that kind of hangs out in there and then we got a few over in here. I’m out there almost every day so I probably see them a lot more than everybody,” one resident said.

It’s not uncommon to have an alligator sighting at the Edgewater apartments. Over the past year the manager says that the population has increased.


Frost told News 19 that folks may want to feed these creatures and it may not be such a good idea.

“Don’t feed them because if you feed them, they are going to associate food with people and that’s when someone will get attacked,” said Frost. “Don’t throw things at them and just leave them alone.”

Warning signs are placed throughout the complex. Frost advises that if you need to photograph an alligator at the lake, photograph from a safe distance.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says if you believe an alligator poses a threat to people or pets, give them a call.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Kathy in FL said:
They go all the way up into GA. There are a couple of state parks just norrh of our BOL that are so thick on the roads in places that you have to drive around the big ones and over the smaller ones assuming you have a high enough vehicle.
Click to expand...

Most people don't realize that their range used to go up into Kentucky and North Carolina! Humans have changed this a bit now, though every once in awhile one can be found on the Mississippi River near Memphis or even St. Louis.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
Current range of the American Alligator

AlligatorMap_f.jpg


For those of you who are wondering if I'm nuts when I say there's a potential for them in North Carolina...

range_ARABA01010.gif
 
Last edited:
Bud in Fla

Bud in Fla

Veteran Member
It doesn't say it but this was probably near Moncks Corner, SC. I used to dive for fossils there, too. We see gators laying around in the old rice fields but I was told gators usually don't go more 15 or 20 feet deep....guess that's BS! I remember talking to someone else on TB2K who did some diving there, too but I can't remember his name now.

Many years ago, a bunch of went to see "Jaws". The next day we went black water diving near Moncks Corner on the Cooper River near Charleston, SC. My dive buddy & I were tethered together in about 40 feet of black water, looking for fossils on the sandy/clay bottom. On a good day with strong batteries in your dive light, you could see maybe 8 feet. We both must have seen the same "flash" at the far limit of our lights because both our lights zeroed in on the same spot - just in time for a 6+ foot long sturgeon to swim between us! We didn't hit the surface but we did pop up to about 20 feet or so. The tether between us never got tight so I wasn't the only one about to have a heart attack!
We regrouped, went back down and finished the dive but we had a war story when we got back in the boat!

people.com

Diver Miraculously Survives Vicious Alligator Attack: ‘Somehow Ripped My Arm Out and Not Off’

Diver Will Georgitis survived a vicious alligator attack after being pinned underwater in the Cooper River in South Carolina on April 19
people.com people.com

Diver Miraculously Survives Vicious Alligator Attack: ‘Somehow Ripped My Arm Out and Not Off’​

Will Georgitis was attacked in South Carolina on April 15 while going for a dive in the Cooper River to look for fossils.
By
Gabrielle Rockson

Published on April 23, 2024 06:55AM EDT

A South Carolina diver is recovering after he miraculously survived a vicious alligator attack that left him pinned underwater.
According to the Associated Press, Will Georgitis was attacked in South Carolina on April 15 after going for a scuba dive to look for fossils.
He told The Post and Courier that after surfacing from his dive due to limited air, he spotted the alligator nearby in the Cooper River.
"It made a beeline right at me," he told the outlet, explaining that he instinctively threw up his arm when the alligator lunged for his head.
With the alligator's jaw clenched onto his arm, Georgitis decided to wrap his free hand and legs around the reptile’s body but the 6 feet 2 inches diver was unable to lock his ankles together and get a firm grip.

Georgitis then tried to use his screwdriver to stab the animal's eye, however, the alligator immediately shook him and pinned him to the bottom of the 50-feet-deep river.
"I knew I was going to die right then and there," Georgitis told The Post and Courier, adding that he continued to stab the gator’s gum with the screwdriver until his scuba tank ran dry.
In desperation, he decided he would try to free himself by placing his feet on the alligator's body and pushing hard until his arm ripped off in its jaws.
“I put my feet up against him just launched back as hard as I possibly could and somehow ripped my arm out and not off,” Georgitis told Good Morning America.
The gator’s teeth then scraped over Georgitis’ arm, enabling the diver to break free and swim to the surface, where a friend was waiting with a boat.

Georgitis was left with a broken bone in his lower right arm, a dislocated bone and an inserted metal plate with nine screws. He may also need more surgery and faces around six months of recovery.
He is now warning other divers to take care when exploring the Cooper River and other waterways in South Carolina, which has an estimated 100,000 alligators.

Georgitis also told The Post and Courier that his survival had nothing to do with being brave.
"The only thing going through my head was pure fear," he told the outler.
 
S

summerthyme

Administrator
_______________
GingerN said:
a friend shot one several years ago that was chasing her horses. She swore it was a wolf. I kept telling her no, wolves are not in this area. She sent me the picture of it. It was sprawled out across the cargo rack on her atv and hung off both ends. It didn't look like a pure wolf, nor a pure coyote, and certainaly was not a domestic dog. Come to find out, most of the coyotes in this part of the world are actually descendants of wolf and coyote hybrids, which would explain that boogers size. He was massive, and she isn't smart enough to use photoshop (neither am I so I am not being ugly). For reference, she was on a property that backs up to COE property on Lake Allatoona's south end.
Click to expand...
I've written quite a bit on here about the Eastern Coyote, which is a fertile hybrid of the Western Coyite, and the Eastern Gray Wolf... guess whose genes are winning? They run in packs like a Wolf, attack larger prey like (healthy, full grown) whitetail deer, and at least yearling cattle. And they ARE huge... one shot on our farm weighed 87#, and DNA tested pure Eastern Coyote. That beast was BIG! And *very* wolf-like in the ears, muzzle, etc.

The dog hunters in rural NY keep them hunted out pretty well... last winter we were hearing them yipping and howling (I swear, they snuck a little Laughing Hyena DNA in there somehow... hearing a pack light up in the deep woods, only yards away can stop you in your tracks... with chills running up your spine! Just two of us and with one dog who was scared crapless, but also was determined to go out fighting... if he hadn't been obedient, I'd have lost him that night, because we later realized that's what they wanted. He was a solid, strong, thick coated English Shepherd, and could have fought off two or three, but not the 7 (plus pups) we later counted.

This year... since maybe midsummer, we haven't heard them at all. Trapping helps, too.

Summerthyme
 
West

West

Senior
Since the gators and crocs are millions of years old, just like we are, the above maps kinda tell a person where to live when the poles shift or worse soon. Going to have to learn to live with them and on them.

:D
 
D

Digger

Veteran Member
We have a fairly good sized one in the water along a walking trail in Russellville Arkansas. I heard the Game and Fish released it to control the beaver population. It has been there for years. So far there have been no problems between it and people enjoying the park. There are pictures of it each year on Facebook and a couple of local news stories.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top