A man in Florida was flown to a nearby hospital on Monday after sustaining serious injuries from an alligator attack, which occurred after he fell from his bike, ABC News reports.
The unidentified victim was riding his bike at Halpatiokee Regional Park in the city of Stuart when he fell off and landed far too close to a female alligator that was apparently guarding her nest. The man was bitten by the gator, measuring at over eight feet long and weighing an estimated 170 pounds, but his situation could have probably been even worse if it weren’t for a bystander who helped pull him out of the water.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office shared a video of the victim being loaded into a helicopter by first responders.
Alligator trapper John Davidson suspects the man fell from one of the skinniest parts of the bike path where a six-foot drop leads right into the creek that he was found in. Davidson told TCPalm that he plans on returning to the site of the attack to locate the alligator’s eggs and relocate them. The gator has been moved to a farm about an hour away.
In 2018, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission claimed that the odds of being seriously injured from an unprovoked alligator attack is one in 3.2 million. The commission said there have been, on average, six bites per year over the last decade that required professional medical treatment.
