JupiterSunsation
10-27-2009, 10:52 PM
contractor picking up litter at John Prince Park fought off an alligator who pulled him into the water by his hand today - then continued working after bandaging his own mangled limb.
A neighbor wandering onto the island where the man was working this afternoon said she paused to ask him a question, and that's when he stopped his trash collecting duties, raised his bloodied left hand and moaned "Alligator, alligator," in broken English.
"He was still going into the shrubbery pulling up garbage," said Anneli Kuebler. "If I didn't notice him I don't know how long he would have been out there working."
Kuebler ran to get the attention of a nearby sheriff's deputy, who was finishing up an investigation of a man who had hanged himself on the same island earlier in the day at the county park west of Lake Worth.
The deputy made the gator-bitten man - who had bandaged his hand with a trash bag and a strip of crime-scene tape left after the suicide - lie down and called for paramedics.
"I think he was just wandering," sheriff's Deputy William Hess said. "It seemed like he didn't know what to do."
The man had no identification but told investigators he was Raymundo Velasco, 49, of suburban Lake Worth.
He had been using a pole with a net to gather trash floating in the water off the island shortly before 1 p.m., officials say. The alligator evidently chomped his hand as he reached into the water to pick up a stray piece of garbage.
Velasco was flown by Trauma Hawk to Delray Medical Center as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called out trappers to hunt down and kill the aggressive gator.
Alligator attacks are rare because the reptiles tend to be frightened of humans. In the past 60 years there have been about 475 reported bites in Florida. The last fatal one was in 2007.
Today's attack was the first of the year in Florida, said Gabriella Ferraro, a spokeswoman for the fish and wildlife commission.
Rick Kramer, the trapper sent by the commission to capture the gator, said park-goers throwing food to the animal may have been a factor in the attack.
"They're probably coming down and feeding the alligator and it's lost its fear of humans," he said.
The small island in John Prince Park where the gator attack occurred had been the site of police activity earlier in the day because a county parks employee who had lost his job earlier in the morning was found hanged there.
It was the commotion from the discovery of his body that had sent Kuebler down to the island, known as McMillen Island, that afternoon to find out was had been happening.
Velasco's injury was not considered life-threatening but it was unclear how badly damaged his hand had been.
A neighbor wandering onto the island where the man was working this afternoon said she paused to ask him a question, and that's when he stopped his trash collecting duties, raised his bloodied left hand and moaned "Alligator, alligator," in broken English.
"He was still going into the shrubbery pulling up garbage," said Anneli Kuebler. "If I didn't notice him I don't know how long he would have been out there working."
Kuebler ran to get the attention of a nearby sheriff's deputy, who was finishing up an investigation of a man who had hanged himself on the same island earlier in the day at the county park west of Lake Worth.
The deputy made the gator-bitten man - who had bandaged his hand with a trash bag and a strip of crime-scene tape left after the suicide - lie down and called for paramedics.
"I think he was just wandering," sheriff's Deputy William Hess said. "It seemed like he didn't know what to do."
The man had no identification but told investigators he was Raymundo Velasco, 49, of suburban Lake Worth.
He had been using a pole with a net to gather trash floating in the water off the island shortly before 1 p.m., officials say. The alligator evidently chomped his hand as he reached into the water to pick up a stray piece of garbage.
Velasco was flown by Trauma Hawk to Delray Medical Center as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called out trappers to hunt down and kill the aggressive gator.
Alligator attacks are rare because the reptiles tend to be frightened of humans. In the past 60 years there have been about 475 reported bites in Florida. The last fatal one was in 2007.
Today's attack was the first of the year in Florida, said Gabriella Ferraro, a spokeswoman for the fish and wildlife commission.
Rick Kramer, the trapper sent by the commission to capture the gator, said park-goers throwing food to the animal may have been a factor in the attack.
"They're probably coming down and feeding the alligator and it's lost its fear of humans," he said.
The small island in John Prince Park where the gator attack occurred had been the site of police activity earlier in the day because a county parks employee who had lost his job earlier in the morning was found hanged there.
It was the commotion from the discovery of his body that had sent Kuebler down to the island, known as McMillen Island, that afternoon to find out was had been happening.
Velasco's injury was not considered life-threatening but it was unclear how badly damaged his hand had been.