Neighbor describes ‘horrible’ moment alligator attacked elderly woman who saved her dog
A wildlife camera captured the horrifying moment that an alligator fatally attacked an elderly woman walking her dog – as a neighbor helplessly spoke with a 911 operator.
The 85-year-old woman stood with her dog on a leash at a Florida retirement community close to a body of water, the footage obtained by Inside Edition shows. Ripples at the surface of the water could be seen approaching the woman, who appeared unaware.
Her dog gravitated toward the water’s edge. The woman walked away from the water while her dog stayed put, then suddenly, a 10-foot-long alligator emerged from the water and lunged at the dog.
The dog jumped away, and the alligator could be seen closing in on the woman. That is when the video cut off.
‘There’s a woman in the lake! The alligator’s got her!’ neighbor Carol Thomas, 76, says in a 911 call. ‘I think she’s gone. Oh my God!’
The woman has been identified as Gloria Serge. She was pulled into the water by the gator and died on Monday. Her dog, Trooper, survived.
‘She was walking her little dog and the gator grabbed the dog and she fell down and it took her,’ Thomas told the dispatcher.
The dispatcher asked, ‘Is she alive?’
‘Yes she’s alive!’ Thomas said. ‘He pulled her in! He pulled her in the lake!’
Thomas said she used a pole to try to pull Serge out of the water, but it was too late.
‘There is no way I could have gotten to her sooner,’ Thomas told Inside Edition. ‘It’s horrible for her family. It’s just horrible, horrible. And her friends, I spoke to a couple of her friends yesterday who are devastated.’
The alligator was known as Henry by neighbors at the Spanish Lakes Fairways retirement community in Fort Pierce. A nuisance alligator trapper captured the reptile and it was tired up and hauled onto a pickup truck by several Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials. It was later euthanized.
Authorities have warned residents not to walk their dogs close to lakes and waterways in the state that are commonly infested with alligators.
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