Photo: ABC
According toABC News, officials confirmed the woman as Nichole Tillman from Melbourne, Florida, and that she was attacked on Saturday afternoon at Key Lake Wilderness Park in Cocoa. Brevard County Fire Rescue did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Speaking with ABC News, witness Dave Nygard described seeing the 8-foot-6-inch gator attack Tillman.
“We’re hanging out about waist to chest deep in the lake. Next thing you know, a girl starts screaming and luckily a couple guys reacted and grab her,” Nygard explained. “I thought she was more or less joking around … next thing you know, we pull her out and her side and her thigh were open. So then about 30 seconds later I see a gator head pop up. It was every bit of 8 foot.”
While officials did not reveal the full extent of Tillman’s injuries, they did say they were “significant.”
Nygard recalled that at the time of the alligator attack, there were about a dozen people freely swimming in the lake.
“Several people grabbed towels and shirts and wrapped her side and leg and then they rushed her up here to the [road],” he said.
While alligators are frequent in Florida, the attack itself was not something seen often, according to Uzel.
“Not very often,” Uzel explained. “As far as alligator bites, I think this was the second in 35 years.”
After the attack, officials said that an alligator trapper came to the scene and successfully removed the gator.
“Usually gators are not intrusive on people,” Nygard said. “They’re more or less more scared of us than we are of them, so for the gator to come up and — he was curious more or less — so thank goodness we got her out and hopefully she’s doing fine right now.”
Regardless, Nygard feels confident the attack won’t keep people out of the lakes.
“You hear of shark bites, yet we keep going in the ocean,” he said. “Born and raised in Florida, not going to keep us out of lakes.”
source: people.com
