There were 442 unprovoked bite incidents in Florida from 1948 to 2021, and 26 of these bites resulted in people dying, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission. Yet gator attacks aren’t that frequent and deaths even more infrequent ( deadly attacks from dogs and horses and other mammals are more common). Some of these gators inhabit places where lots of people live and many others vacation, such as lakes and rivers all across Florida and coastal South Carolina. Georgia has about a quarter of a million. Florida sports roughly 1.25 million alligators (and more than 1,000 American crocodiles). Louisiana has an estimated 2 million wild gators in a state of about 4.65 million people. Heim was in a situation many people probably fear but very few actually experience: an attack by an alligator.Īn estimated 5 million wild American alligators are spread out across 10 states in Southeast and beyond, including parts of North Carolina and even the extreme southeastern tip of Oklahoma. He was in the water, alone and face-to-face with an alligator.Īlligators sun themselves in Florida City, Miami-Dade County. But mostly what I felt was what I thought was a huge boat just slamming into me and just pulling me down.” I just felt like a blunt force object – like someone … swinging a baseball bat and just whacking my head. “I didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything. He was under no more than one minute when he felt something. He put on his wetsuit, mask, fins and snorkel and entered the water from the shore, not far from a restaurant along the riverbank. He had been there numerous times and was comfortable with plunging into its murky waters to find the teeth of extinct megalodons in the riverbed. So on a hot, sunny Sunday in Sarasota County, Florida, the 25-year-old Heim proceeded to the Myakka River on a spot about 45 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. An unsuccessful attempt the day before to find any of them only fueled his obsession to find some on his next outing, he told CNN Travel recently. Jeffrey Heim woke up on May 30, 2021, with one thing on his mind: Sharks.
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