Alligator Attacks Lawyers
Contacts between alligators and people continue to increase as the sprawl of human development encroaches into previously uninhabited areas. Since 1950, approximately 400 injuries and over 25 deaths have occurred as a result.
Activities during which alligator attacks have occurred most frequently include:
- Alligator capture-related activities (17.4 percent of attacks)
- Swimming (16.7 percent)
- Fishing-related activities (9.9 percent)
- Golf ball retrieval (9.5 percent)
- Activities along a bank (planting/walking/sitting/standing) (7.2 percent)
- Wading/walking in water (5.3 percent)
- Snorkeling (4.3 percent)
Although alligators are generally not aggressive towards people, certain conditions, such as when someone approaches a nearby nest, can perpetuate an attack by a female alligator thats guarding it. Crossing the path of an alligator in search of food or intruding on its home territory can also be dangerous. Golf courses that contain alligators, such as many of those in Florida, are well advised to post signs around where they hunt and habituate.
Alligator attacks are most frequent in Florida and Louisiana because of the prevalence of the American alligator in these states. Southern Florida also has the distinction of being the only place where alligators and crocodiles live alongside each other. The American alligator, however, is also native to southern parts of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, coastal North and South Carolina, Eastern Texas, the southern tip of Arkansas, and the southeastern corner of Oklahoma.
An average adult American alligator is 13 feet long and weighs 800 pounds, but can grow to 14.5 fee in length and weigh 1,030 pounds! With their bone crunching bite, alligators are among the few non-venomous reptiles that can seriously injure or kill humans.
If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in an alligator attack, you may be entitled to compensation. There are many circumstances under which another person(s) or government entity may be at least partially responsible for the attack, such as when an alligator entered an unfenced property, no warning signs were posted, or someone unlawfully kept an alligator as a pet.
Contact a qualified personal injury attorney for an evaluation of your case.
