Alligator kills jogger in FL

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...home-headlines

Medical examiner confirms woman jogger was killed by alligator in Sunrise

By John Holland & Akilah Johnson
sun-sentinel.com
Posted May 11 2006, 3:00 PM EDT


SUNRISE -- A Davie woman found floating in a canal near Markham Park was stalked and killed by an alligator, then dragged into the water, an autopsy confirmed on Thursday.

Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, was apparently attacked on land and dragged into the canal near State Road 84. She received several traumatic injuries and lost two limbs in the attack, law enforcement agents and the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office said on Thursday.

The dismembered body was found near a bridge off S.R. 84 on Wednesday by construction workers. She was wearing jogging shoes and clothing. Officials said she went for a jog Tuesday evening and never returned home.

``It is my professional opinion that the alligator attacked the woman while she was on land,'' said Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County's medical examiner. ``She died of traumatic injuries sustained by an alligator attack, a mixture of blood loss and shock, and in my opinion died very fast.''

Perper ruled out drowning because little water was found in her stomach and lungs

It marks the first fatal alligator attack ever recorded in Broward County. The attack also shows that the recent drought, coupled with the gator mating season and more construction in West Broward, has made human contact with alligators more common, experts said.

Earlier, Officer Jorge Pino, spokesman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, said the department had witnesses who had seen a woman matching Jimenez's description dangling her feet over the water's edge, but no one saw an attack, Pino said.

"You really have two different scenarios coming together, said Kevin Garvey, whose company, Nuisance Wildlife Control, was hired to track down the killer alligator."The low water conditions mean that they are going to be traveling a little more, and you always have more activity when they are mating. I get callled out at least every day during this time of year.''

Garvey set up a trap and fishing line baited with pig's lung in hopes of luring the suspect gator, but he said his best shot will come at night as he patrols the canal by boat. The alligator is believed to be 8 to 10 feet long.

If captured, Pino said the contents of the gator's stomach will be examined.

Perper said the alligator appeared to have crawled on to land and killed Jimenez and then dragged her body into the water.

He said alligators generally pull their prey into the water.

``When they are hungry they can be very very aggressive and attack for food purposes,'' Perper said.

Being killed by an alligator is extremely rare. There have only been 25 fatal alligator attacks in Florida since 1948 and none in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the Wildlife Commission.

The most recent incident occurred in Port Charlotte when a 12-foot alligator attacked a 41-year-old man as he swam in a canal in July. Nearly a year before that, a 20-year-old woman was killed in Lee County while swimming in a retention pond. In 2004, a woman was attacked while on Sanibel Island.

In 1993, an alligator grabbed the head of Bradley Weidenhamer, 10, of Lantana, and dragged him into the Loxahatchee River. Bradley died despite efforts by his father and others to free him from the alligator's jaws in a remote site along the river in Martin County.

Experts say alligator attacks haven't become more common but man's interaction with the reptile has. As more land is developed to keep pace with Florida's housing boom, more wildlife habits are lost and alligators are more likely to wander into residential and commercial areas.

The lack of rain is also bringing more alligators out of the wild.

"The Everglades is very, very dry, so that means a lot of gators that were in the marshes are now in canals," said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife scientist. "So probably everywhere you go in the western part of Broward County, there are more alligators in canals than there were a month ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report as did Staff Writers John Holland and Joe Kollin and Staff Researchers Barbara Hijek and William Lucey.

Akilah Johnson can be reached at akjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4631.

Ouch.

Experts say alligator attacks haven't become more common but man's interaction with the reptile has. As more land is developed to keep pace with Florida's housing boom, more wildlife habits are lost and alligators are more likely to wander into residential and commercial areas.

A reporter that gets it.

If a person lives in Florida, then they must be familiar or at least have heard of the Alligator population that lives there. Why in the world would you go swimming in canals where there is a possibility of encountering an Alligator. Or, for that matter, sit at the edge of a canal or water area and dangle your feet over the edge near the water. Which is where I think the attack took place. The gator just swam underneath her and grabbed her by the feet and ---------------------------- that's is what happens.

Not everyone was in the front of the line when they were dishing out Common Sense.

....me included

If a person lives in Florida, then they must be familiar or at least have heard of the Alligator population that lives there. Why in the world would you go swimming in canals where there is a possibility of encountering an Alligator. Or, for that matter, sit at the edge of a canal or water area and dangle your feet over the edge near the water. Which is where I think the attack took place. The gator just swam underneath her and grabbed her by the feet and ---------------------------- that's is what happens.

Not true, considering 90% of people in Florida come from elsewhere, most don't know about the wildlife problems.

Why would you go outside? There are rattlesnakes and other deadly snakes roaming.
Why would you swim in the ocean? Due to sharks and other deadly creatures.

I am a native Floridian and yes COMMON SENSE would have alot to do with living here. Oh yeah carrying a gun at all times helps as well.

Originally Posted by INSANE CANES LLC

Oh yeah carrying a gun at all times helps as well.

Concur.

I think it's terrible that it happened. But I've always had this sneaking suspicion that jogging is bad for you.....

Originally Posted by lucille

Concur.

I think it's terrible that it happened. But I've always had this sneaking suspicion that jogging is bad for you.....

That's why you won't catch me jogging, too dangerous of a sport.

So 90% of the people who live there in Fla. hadn't heard about the Alligator population that lives there also eh?

Originally Posted by Rattlesnake

So 90% of the people who live there in Fla. hadn't heard about the Alligator population that lives there also eh?

They do now.

Trappers confident they've found, caught killer gator

They got him.

He was a 9-foot-6 beast that took four days to trap and six people to haul in Saturday from the Sunrise canal where he killed a 28-year-old Davie student. And inside his stomach, they found the grisly proof they had the right alligator.

"Hopefully this will provide some peace to the young woman's family," said Dani Moschella, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "And hopefully this means we have removed a dangerous animal."
Relatives of the victim, Yovy Suarez Jimenez, could not be reached for comment. Family members planned to attend private services for her Saturday.
For Kevin Garvey, trapper and owner of Nuisance Wildlife Control, finding the gator was personal.
He patrols that very canal, between Markham County Park and State Road 84, often and knew most of the gators that frequent it. When Jimenez's body was found Wednesday by construction workers, he knew he would have to find this new gator before it could kill again.
"I didn't want anything like this to happen in my territory," he said. "The pressure's been on me."
As he has the last several days, he lobbed his bait into the middle of the canal Friday night: a hunk of pig lung with shark hooks embedded in the meat. That same setup had already caught two other gators, whose stomachs revealed an odd diet: raccoon meat, a football and tennis balls.
When Garvey visited his trap about 8:30 a.m. Saturday, he saw it: The male reptile was blind in one eye, which could have made it more aggressive, Garvey said. And it thrashed like mad as he and five others yanked it up the embankment.
"He was fighting for his life," Garvey said.
This time, the gator lost.
Wildlife officials took the reptile to All American Gator Products in Pembroke Pines, where they killed it and performed a necropsy. They found two severed arms in the gator's stomach, consistent with Jimenez's injuries. Officials then cut off the alligator's head and sent it to the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office to match the teeth marks to Jimenez's wounds. The rest of the alligator's remains were incinerated at the Broward County Humane Society, Moschella said.
Officials say the Florida Atlantic University student might have been jogging in the area Wednesday when she stopped to rest near the canal. There, officials surmise, the gator attacked and killed Jimenez on land, ripping off both arms and then dragging her body into the canal. An autopsy revealed she died from the alligator's vicious bites, not drowning.
While such attacks have been extremely rare in the past, Moschella warned residents to stay away from gators, report aggressive ones and use caution around canals and waterways.
"Give them their space," she said. "If you see an alligator in the wild, give it its space, appreciate it from a distance."