Bodycam footage shows deputies respond to NFM alligator attack

An 84-year-old woman is in the hospital after an alligator attacked her while she was walking her dog.

Lee County Sheriff’s Office has released the bodycam footage as deputies arrive on the scene in North Fort Myers after a gator bit a woman walking her dog near a pond on Thursday night.

“My shower’s right there,” said a neighbor in the video. “I opened up the window to let the heat out, and I heard somebody screaming and screaming.”

The neighbor said she ran out to help.

“I ran. I went to the sliding glass door. I saw her here, and she was crawling out, and she’s screaming, and she’s waving her hands like this,” said the neighbor.

WINK News spoke with Mark Burlingham, another neighbor who also ran to help after hearing the victim’s screams.

“I ran down there to Dale, that’s the neighbor, Dale, and she was laying on the ground with her dog and said that the alligator came up to get the dog,” said Burlingham. “She pulled the dog out of the way and the gator got her leg and arm and hand.”

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Lee County EMS were called to the scene.

FWC said the woman was bit in the leg and taken to a nearby hospital.

FWC was able to track down the gator. The 7-foot-3-inch gator was trapped and removed from the area.

Neighbors WINK News spoke with in the area said they’ve seen the alligator before.

“The gator is in my sideyard all the time,” said the neighbor. “There’s one, and then there’s a little, a smaller one, but this was the bigger one.”

According to the daughter of the woman bit by the gator, her mom is still in the hospital but is doing OK.

FWC reminds anyone with concerns about a nuisance gator should contact their nuisance gator line At 866-FWC-GATOR.