Lesson: Crack & Gators Just Don't Mix.
Fifteen to 20 feet from shore and in chest-high water, the deputy spotted Apgar.
"When I first saw him he was crouched down and he said he felt another gator in the water,'' Osborne said.
At this point, Deputy Michael Parker waded through the water to get near the alligator, but it started to thrash around.
The deputies, who were just a couple of feet from Apgar and the alligator, said their first instinct was to shoot the large reptile.
"When it started thrashing, we couldn't get a good shot and the man was in the line of fire," Osborne said.
At one point, the alligator released its grip on Apgar but quickly grabbed him again, Parker said.
What followed was a life-and-death struggle between the deputies and the alligator with Apgar in the middle.
The two deputies latched on to Apgar's arms and were in a tug-of-war with the alligator.
"He was saying, 'He's gonna kill me!'" Parker said.
Judd said Apgar told deputies he had been smoking crack cocaine and was nude when he was pulled from the lake.
posted by PSA+ at 10:07
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When I was growing up in Lakeland, the town mascot was actually an old one-eyed alligator named, of course, "Blinky" that lived in Lake Mirror, right downtown. The city actually a built a special ramp for him to sun homself on. For some reason - I suspect complaints from fearful yankees - the city decided he had to be removed, so they took him for retirement to Gator Jungle amusement park over in Plant City, where the poor old thing was promptly eaten by the other alligators. Very tragic.
Alan: Over the years the City, at some expense, has kept the gator population in Lake Morton to about zero because of the ducks, swans and geese. Recently, they drained the lake to facilitate a habitat beautification/restoration program. This involved relocating the swans, etc (again, at some expense) to Lake Hunter while the project was underway. Lake Hunter apparently has a thriving gator population with a taste for swan meat, especially the Black Swans given to the City by Queen Elizabeth. In any case, the project is now complete, looks great,what's left of the swans are back in gator-free Lake Morton and the gators in Lake Hunter are having to make it on turtles, fish and the occasional crack-head. I will keep you up to date.
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