88-Year-Old S.C. Woman Dead After Being Attacked by Alligator at Retirement Community

Officials from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the area around 11:15 a.m. local time, they said in aFacebookpost, after they were called with reports that a person was in a 300-square-yard pond on the property with an alligator.

Emergency personnel located the deceased female on the scene, according to the sheriff’s office. The alligator — a 9-foot, 8-inch male — was said to be standing guard beside her, Beaufort County sheriff’s spokeswoman Maj. Angela Viens toldNBC News.

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Becker’s body was eventually recovered, around 1 p.m that afternoon, the sheriff’s office said in a release. Personnel with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) located and removed the alligator around 4 p.m., NBC News reported.

The attack is the second this year and the third in South Carolina since 2020. In May of that year, a Myrtle Beach manwas killedwhen he was dragged into a retention pond.

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Despite the horror and infrequency of the incident, Viens told theTimeson Monday that they are not unheard of. “Alligator attacks are rare but not surprising,” she said.

source: people.com