And in a related story:
Granny beats off alligator
Constance Gittles, 74, fended off a 6-foot-long alligator in Florida by hitting it with her sprinkler nozzle.
Photo: AP
May 12, 2006 - 10:43AM
An elderly Florida woman, who was bitten by an alligator while working in her backyard, beat back the reptile with a garden hose.
Constance Gittles, 74, was watering plants when a nearly 2-metre-long alligator bit her leg just above the ankle.
"I just whacked him right in the snout with the nozzle," she said. "After that, he took off."
Gittles received three puncture wounds and some smaller scrapes and abrasions from her confrontation with the alligator.
A trapper working with wildlife officials later caught the animal in a nearby pond. It will be killed and the hide and meat sold.
The incident occurred as a newspaper report claimed a woman was killed by an alligator in Florida and then dragged into a canal.
The dismembered body of Yovy Suarez Jimenez, 28, of Davie, Florida was found by construction workers after she never returned from jogging the previous night.
"It is my professional opinion that the alligator attacked the woman while she was on land," Dr Joshua Perper, Broward County's medical examiner told The Miami Herald.
"She died of traumatic injuries sustained by an alligator attack, a mixture of blood loss and shock, and in my opinion died very fast."
Perper ruled out drowning because little water was found in her stomach and lungs, according to a story on the paper's website.
A woman matching Jimenez's description had been seen dangling her feet over the water's edge, but no one saw an attack.
Trappers will try to catch and kill the animal and the contents of its stomach will be examined, Pino said.
"When they are hungry they can be very, very aggressive and attack for food purposes," the newspaper quoted Perper as saying.
There have been 25 fatal alligator attacks in Florida since 1948, according to the wildlife commission.
AP
