(CNN) — An 80-year-old woman died after she fell into a pond and was “grabbed” by two alligators in Sarasota County, Florida, on Friday, authorities said.
The woman fell into a pond along the golf course around 8:15 pm at the Boca Royal Golf and Country Club, located in Englewood, Florida, according to a statement from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. She “struggled to stay afloat,” but two alligators “eventually grabbed her while she was in the water,” the statement recounted.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The sheriff’s office and the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are investigating. The woman’s cause of death has not yet been determined, according to the statement.
A hired alligator hunter was dispatched to the scene and he removed two alligators from the area, the commission told CNN in a statement. One of the alligators was over 2.4 meters long, while the other was 2.3 meters long. However, “it is unknown at this time if alligators were involved in this incident,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Serious injuries from alligator attacks are rare even in Florida, which is home to more than a million alligators, according to the commission. In 2021, the agency registered just nine alligator bitesand none were fatal.
At least two alligator-related deaths have been recorded so far this year in the United States. It is believed that at the end of May alligators They killed a man in a Florida lake.. And in June, an alligator claimed the life of a person in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.