Man almost attacked by alligator in Seven Seas Lagoon

[kim532]

Clearly you won't want to eat these ones though - they have brain eating amoebas taking them out and the news refuses to report it!

 

[I'mNoPrince]

Mk around 03 /04 right by the Turkeylaeg stand in FTL.

I had pictures of one from 05 in the BCV canal but can't find them.

Disney can't remove or do anything to them until they reach over 5ft then they can relocate to there Farm that they have . This is also where they get the Small ones from for the LAnd Ride and send them when they get a bit bigger.

 

[treehugnmama]

I am really not liking the aligators...we don't have those in ontario and they freak me OUT!!!.

I didn't know they hissed......So in the nice little lake at OKW where the fountin is there could be aligators??? What about the golfers? is it safe to be golphing by the aligator infested water?


Sharks and Gators really terrify me....we don't have either around me I guess the unknown scares me

If they are in the lakes what keeps them from the pools??

Now I am freaked out

 

[tiggerbell]

If they are in the lakes what keeps them from the pools??

The pools close at midnight and alligators are nocturnal.

 

[DisneyKevin]

Clearly you won't want to eat these ones though - they have brain eating amoebas taking them out and the news refuses to report it!

ok...thats funny.

 

[FireDancer]

I think the new signs they put in will keep the people out of the damn lakes once and for all:

 

[CBisMe]

 

[DVCsince02]

 

[ADP]

That made my Monday!

 

[PrincessMom4]

I also am a fellow Ontario resident and to think some of the place that we swim in up here. People have no problem jumping into a lake or even a pond. Apparently if an alligator is following, run in a zig-zag pattern.

 

[eeyorethegreat]

I also am a fellow Ontario resident and to think some of the place that we swim in up here. People have no problem jumping into a lake or even a pond. Apparently if an alligator is following, run in a zig-zag pattern.

I live in Maine people never think anything of swimming in lakes and ponds here either usually, some water bodies are known for leeches or snapping turtles...people usually steer clear of those,

 

[freesone]

Clearly you won't want to eat these ones though - they have brain eating amoebas taking them out and the news refuses to report it!

Maybe if they are cooked at a high enough temperature??

 

[Jamie77]

STAY OUT OF THE D*MN LAKES!!!


Seriously though - why doesn't the brain eating ameoba attack the gator? Hmmmm - conspiracy theorists debate!

Good question! Makes you wonder if all the gators got together and came up with that amoeba story.

 

[TXYankee]

one of the pilots ran over an alligator with one of the launches. Score one for humans!

Did you get it on the first try?

 

[OKW Lover]

We eat alligators where I come from.

Had any of my relatives heard the hissing, he would have been in a pot.

If I wanted something that tastes like chicken, I'll order chicken.

 

[Minnie Lor]

We stay at Shades of Green across from the Poly alot. There's defintely alligators in their ponds and in the golf course ponds around Shades. When we were there in Oct. the front desk CM told us to be careful walking to the Poly. He said that there were known to be alligators in the trees along the path between the Poly and Shades. We walked the path on several occasions and never heard anything but I did stay very close to hubby.

 

[PrincessMom4]

now I am officially worried... silly question, why can't Disney have someone remove them and put them at an alligator farm??

 

[eeyorethegreat]

Once they get to a certain size they are removed. Obviously gators should not be underestimated but if you go about your business and stay out of the waterways you are not likely to be chased down by one.

 

[WLfan]

So taking this picture was a bad idea???

That is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Send one to Pete.

 

[irunnoft]

Gators are most definitely serious business and not something to be taken lightly. Remember that they are primarily an ambush predetor and that one of their tactics is to rush from the water's edge OR use their massive tails to swipe at prey on the edge of the water (hopefully to break the prey's legs and sweep it into the water in one fell swoop). This is a true story about my grandfather who was attacked by an alligator in Pompano Beach, FL. It is in a book called Early Florida Settlers but I actually found it online (ain't Google amazing?). Just a word to the wise, be aware that there are lots of lakes in WDW and they most definitely have alligators in them. You can't fully suspend reality when on a vacation in WDW - especially if you're doing anything near the water.

The day the Gator got Jimmy McNab

Sometime in late summer in the year 1925, 14 year old Jimmie McNab, his brother Robert, age 12 and their friend Everette Green having been born and raised in Pompano and having just returned from a vacation in Colorado were on their way to the beach in Pompano to go swimming. Jimmy had been cautioned by his mother not to swim in the East Coast canal (Intracoastal Waterway) as he and others had done in the past. It was a dangerous place to swim with the thick mangroves and shrubs bordering the canal and the water being murkey most of the time.

The bridgetender had seen and shot at a large gator on several occasions at the bridge on the "beach road" (now Atlantic Boulevard). It would come in to eat the chicken and other scraps the tender threw into the water. This was not known to Jimmy and Robert because they had been out of the state for some time. Arriving at the bridge they went to their favorite "swimming hole" and donned their swim trunks. All three were good swimmers and had been practicing underwater swimming.

They agreed to dive off the pilings together and swim underwater to the other side, about 30 feet away. The water was about 7 feet deep where they entered. They all dove together and started across. Jimmy had just opened his eyes under water and spotted many bubbles in front of him. Before he could react a large alligator was coming towards him and closed its massive jaws over his head and tried to swallow him, at the same time rising to the surface of the water and making a tremendous splashing with his tail.

Jimmy, being of slight build, weighing only about 75 pounds was desperately fighting with his hands, trying to free his head from the jaws of the gator. For some unknown reason, possible from Jimmy getting his finger in the eye of the gator he released his hold on him and Jimmy made it to the surface and yelled to his brother and friend he was being attacked by an alligator.

At that moment the gator's tremendous jaws again grabbed Jimmy by the head and pulled him to the bottom of the canal and "rolled" him several times churning and splashing the water with his tail. Jimmy was fighting the gator with his hands and again the gator opened his jaws and he was able to get away, taking a few strokes toward the bank of the canal and trying to get out of the water. At the waters edge the gator came after him again, arched his back, slashing his huge tail, striking Jimmy on his left shoulder, turned and snapped its huge jaws biting him on his left shoulder.

By this time his brother Robert and Everette were out of the water and at the edge of the bank scared, but trying to help him. Everette hit the gator with a board he had found and this distracted the gator long enough for Jimmy to get out of the water. The gator continued to swim around in the water at the banks edge, which was red with Jimmy's blood.

Jimmy's hands and fingers were lacerated and torn from the teeth and jaws of the gator where he had tried to pry the massive jaws from his head, and he was bleeding heavily. There were teeth wounds, lacerations and bruises on his neck and head. His left shoulder was torn open and bleeding, much of this damage caused by the gators'tail.

Jimmy's Mother had told the boys not to go swimming in the canal. They had slipped out of the house planning on going to the beach and stopped at the canal deciding to swim there anyway. She missed the boys and had a premonition they would be swimming in the canal. She got into her car and drove to the East Coast Canal just in time to see Jimmy being helped up the bank and onto the bridge. She helped get Jimmy, who she said later "was bleeding like a stuck hog", into the back seat of the car, found an old robe in the car and covered him up. Jimmy's father and uncle, Harry McNab were working on the Pompano Hotel just West of the canal and Mrs. McNab stopped and called for them to get in the car and get Jimmy to the hospital. Jimmy was taken to a small hospital in Ft Lauderdale where he was admitted and after a considerable time, he recuperated and returned home. Some of the effects suffered by Jimmy from this attack by the ten-foot alligator happened about a year after the attack when the wound on his left shoulder swelled-up and had to be lanced and drained every three or four months.

The same afternoon after Jimmy's desperate and heroic battle for his life, the bridgetender shot and killed the 10 foot long gator. The gator was draped on the fender of a car and he streched from the front fender to the back fender. Jimmy carried a picture of this gator in his wallet for many years after this experience until his wallet, with the picture in it was stolen from his home during a break-in.

Jimmy McNab carried the scars on his left shoulder, head and hands, including a large depression across his shoulders until his death in December, 1993 proving he, at the age of 14 years old met and defeated a savage alligator in deadly combat in the gators home territory. Jimmy McNab had some understandable side effects from this encounter. His wife, Mildred said he wouldn't go near the East Coast Canal for some time and his dad sent him to school at the "Citadel", a military school in South Carolina for a year or so to help him get over it. Very few people of any age ever escape from a full grown alligator when caught in the water. Jimmy McNab, fourteen years old, 75 pounds met one, fought him off barehanded and lived to tell about it. Jimmy McNab was a real hero.