A 75-year-old woman is recovering in Beaufort after she was attacked by a gator at a pond in Okatie over the weekend.
According to reports, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said the attack happened on Friday on Callawassie Island. The victim was apparently trimming some plants near the edge of a pond on her property, and the alligator grabbed her by her leg and pulled her into the water.
SCDNR reports a neighbor thought she was actually drowning and jumped in to help her, not knowing that she had been pulled in by an alligator. Reports said the neighbor was able to get the woman out of the water and is currently doing well
Officials with SCDNR said the Okatie gator had since been removed from the pond and euthanized.
While gators are all over the Beaufort County area, attacks are few and far between, despite the fact that the county has more recorded alligator attacks than any other county in South Carolina, according to the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
By our count, this is the 15th attack in Beaufort County in recent years, with only one fatality. You can find alligators all over the area; on local golf courses, beaches, in the marshes, practically anywhere and everywhere there is water…gators and locals can cross paths quite often. South Carolina is estimated to house approximately 100,000 alligators, and most of them call the Lowcountry home.
Alligators usually are not aggressive toward humans, but they are very dangerous. Unprovoked attacks by alligators smaller than 5 feet are rare, but unusual behavior does occur. Single bites usually are made by alligators that are less than 8 feet long.
In the news recently, a 57 year old woman was killed in May 2020 by an alligator on Kiawah Island, between Edisto and Charleston. Also, in 2018 a 45 year old Hilton Head woman was killed by an alligator while walking her dog in Sea Pines.
The public is advised that if an alligator is causing problems here in Beaufort, contact the state DNR office responsible for covering Beaufort County at (803) 625-3569. For an after-hours emergency, call Operation Game Thief at 1-800-922-5431.
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