Bodycam video shows moment authorities put to death massive alligator that killed 41-year-old Florida woman



Newly released bodycam video shows the moment that authorities put to death a massive alligator that had recently killed a Florida woman.

Last September, a Florida man noticed what appeared to be a human body hanging out of the mouth of a huge alligator in Pinellas County.

The witness, Jamarcus Bullard, told WTVT at the time, "I noticed it had a body in its mouth, like a lower torso, so once I saw that, I ran straight to the fire department and got them, they confirmed it was a body."

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was called to the grisly scene and discovered the body of 41-year-old Sabrina Peckham was in the alligator's mouth. Bodycam footage from the FWC shows authorities wrangling the massive alligator with ropes and chains. Suddenly in the bodycam video released last week, one of the officers is seen using a rifle to shoot and "humanely" kill the animal.

The gator – nearly 14 feet in length – was later dissected, and some of Peckham's remains were found inside the beast.

Peckham was a homeless woman who lived in a campsite roughly 35-45 feet away from the canal where the alligator attack occurred. Investigators found no evidence that the alligator attacked the woman at the campsite in Largo, Florida.

Peckham's family last saw her a day before the deadly alligator attack. A park ranger reported seeing the woman near the canal a week before her tragic death.

Peckham's daughter, Breanna Dorris, shared her grief during a vigil held in September.

The heartbroken daughter said at the time of her mother's death, "It's surreal, but I'm super grateful her community can pull together in times like this. It shows we have an amazing support team behind us in times of tragedy,"

Doris wrote a Facebook post that read: "The past 24 hours have been filled with grief and sorrow and unbearable pain for our family. My mother, Sabrina Peckham, was the victim of the alligator attack at McKay Creek. She was a part of the homeless population living in the nearby wooded area. It's believed she may have been walking to or from her campsite near the creek in the dark when the gator attacked."

Since the fatal incident, Pinellas County has installed fencing and signs warning people to stay away from the canal.

The canal, known as McKay Creek, connects Ridgecrest Lake and Taylor Lake. Alligators have been known to use this waterway to travel between the two lakes.

You can watch the chilling bodycam video here.

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Elderly woman dies after being attacked by 600-pound alligator while walking her dog in Florida



An elderly woman died as a result of an alligator attack in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Monday.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says that 85-year-old Gloria Serge was walking her small dog near a retention pond in the Spanish Lakes Fairways, a living community for those 55 years and older, when the alligator attacked.

The report from the commission said the 10-foot alligator came out of the pond and knocked over the woman before dragging her into the water by her foot.

Witnesses to the attack spoke to WPTV-TV that the alligator tried to get at the woman's dog but then attacked the woman when she tried to save the dog.

"I heard kind of like a commotion and I looked out and I saw the dog and I saw my neighbor," said a neighbor named Carol. "I just remember her coming up and you know, pushing her hair out of her face, and getting air."

She said that the victim told her she couldn't swim toward the edge because the alligator had her. She says she is haunted by her inability to help her neighbor.

WPTV captured footage of a nuisance alligator trapper restraining the alligator.

"It was definitely a fight," said Robert Lilly to WPTV. "We snagged him on the bottom. He never surfaced. He stayed down the whole time. We were able to get a second hook in him and a hard line in him so we could get him up."

The alligator was estimated to weigh between 600 and 700 pounds and measured between 10 and 11 feet long. Officials believe there are about 1.3 million alligators in the state of Florida, but attacks on people are very rare.

The woman's dog survived the attack.

The city of Fort Pierce lies about 67 miles north of West Palm Beach.

Here's a local news report about the incident:

Woman killed after being attacked by alligator in Ft. Pierce www.youtube.com

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Florida man loses arm in alligator attack, survives being lost in the woods for 3 days. He now has new mission in life after being 'reborn.'



A Florida man was able to not only evade death from a grisly alligator attack during which he lost his arm, but he also survived being lost in the woods for three days.

Eric Merda got lost in the woods at the Lake Manatee Fish Camp in Myakka City on July 17. As he walked in the park about 50 miles south of Tampa Bay, he encountered a lake. Instead of walking around the lake, he decided to swim across.

"Not the smartest decision a Florida boy could make," Merda told WTSP this week in his first interview since the alligator attack.

"I look over and there's a gator on my righthand side so I went to swim, and she got my forearm so I grabbed her like this, she was trying to roll, but she snapped her head, so my arm went backwards like this completely," Merda explained.

The 43-year-old Florida man said he was fighting for his life as the 7-foot-long alligator dragged him underwater three times.

"She's already got my arm, so when we came up the third time, she finally did her death roll and took off with my arm," he said.

Merda described the excruciating situation, "Bones poking out, muscles, if I try to move my fingers, you could see it twitching."

Merda said he was in tremendous pain all three days that he was lost.

"I was screaming at the top of my lungs," he said.

Merda said he couldn't see anything and it took three days for him to find his way out of the swamp.

"I felt like I was walking in circles, I didn't know," he said. "So I followed the sun and power lines, stuff I could see."

Merda recalled the moment that he found help. He told a man, "I said a gator got my arm, he said, 'holy smokes man!'"

He was airlifted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where doctors amputated what was left of the arm.

He told himself, "There’s no way that this is real. My arm is gone. I don't have an arm anymore. There’s no way. I have to be dreaming or something."

'Gator got my arm': Man survives 3 days lost in the woods after alligator attack www.youtube.com

However, Merda sees a silver lining to his traumatic experience.

"I came out the swamp, naked, with one arm,” Merda told WFLA. "I was reborn for a reason, and I believe that is to motivate people."

He said he now has a new mission in life and he plans to use the near-death experience to become a motivational speaker.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife said an alligator trapper removed a 6-foot and a 9-foot gator from the lake four days after the attack.

Merda has an important message, "Do not feed the gators, and you guys know who you are, throwing rocks at them. I've seen it on the job sites, leave them gators alone."

Also this week, a 77-year-old woman was attacked by an alligator in nearby Bradenton. The woman was taken to the hospital to be treated for her injuries from the alligator attack.

There have been six serious alligator attacks in the Tampa Bay area since March. Three of the incidents were fatal.

Sarasota man lost for three days in Lake Manatee after losing his arm in gator attack in July www.youtube.com