{"id":327495,"date":"2026-07-02T17:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/327495\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T17:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:36:10","slug":"orlando-woman-31-dies-in-alligator-attack-while-swimming-in-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/327495\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando woman, 31, dies in alligator attack while swimming in river"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A 31-year-old woman who died after she was attacked by an alligator in Central Florida on Sunday is being remembered for her fun-loving spirit.<\/p>\n<p>Brittany Clark of Orlando died while swimming in Econlockhatchee River located at Little Big Econ State Forest.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH BELOW: Orlando woman killed by gator remembered as &#8216;fun-loving spirit&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Orlando woman killed by gator remembered as &#8216;fun-loving spirit&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Orlando NBC affiliate <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wesh.com\/article\/brother-woman-killed-gator-attack-beautiful-person\/71798625\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">WESH-TV<\/a> received a statement from her boyfriend, who was with her when she was attacked, saying Clark loved going out on the water every chance she could and never in a million years would they have seen this nightmare coming.<\/p>\n<p>An<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/in-memory-of-brittanys-funloving-spirit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> online fundraiser<\/a> described what happened to her as a &#8220;completely bizarre accident&#8221; that took the life of a woman who was an avid bike rider and dog lover.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Robb, who has more than three decades of experience dealing with Florida alligators, offered some insight about the active Florida Fish and Wildlife investigation into the deadly encounter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;FWC has a lot of steps, they&#8217;ll go through; they&#8217;ll look at bite patterns, look for DNA things that nature,&#8221; Robb told WESH-TV.<\/p>\n<p>Following the attack, FWC officials said they captured and killed two gators.<\/p>\n<p>The first gator was a 13-foot reptile near where Clark was badly bitten and a 12-and-a-half-foot gator about a half mile away.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The guys who go out there to do that job, the trappers who go out there to find the animal that is the problem, they&#8217;re pretty dang good at their jobs,&#8221; Robb said.<\/p>\n<p>A 911 call from one of Clark&#8217;s friends after the attack described the bite as &#8220;horrible.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It sounds like from the 911 calls, there were people there having an eyewitness to what happened definitely helps the situation,&#8221; Robb said.<\/p>\n<p>The FWC has submitted DNA samples of the harvested alligators to a lab in Gainesville for testing, seeking to confirm if they were involved in the deadly attack.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ll be looking first and foremost in the animal&#8217;s mouth, and then its stomach.<\/p>\n<p>WESH-TV has reported on three gator attacks within seven days in Central Florida.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can find alligators in pretty much every body of water in Florida. It&#8217;s just, it&#8217;s about being aware of your surroundings,&#8221; Robb said.<\/p>\n<p>He said people need to remember to keep their distance from the reptiles, never feed them and only swim in designated areas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you have an alligator that&#8217;s been fed, you&#8217;re dealing with one that&#8217;s not afraid of people anymore, will approach people, will not naturally be afraid and move away, and that&#8217;s when the risk. You know the risk goes up,&#8221; Robb said.<\/p>\n<p>The <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/in-memory-of-brittanys-funloving-spirit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">online fundraiser<\/a> for Clark says they are trying to raise money to return her remains to her parents in California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A 31-year-old woman who died after she was attacked by an alligator in Central&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13925,82974,135283,28,135282,139,141,140,1014],"class_list":["post-327495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-alligators","tag-econlockhatchee-river","tag-fatal-alligator-attack","tag-florida","tag-little-big-econ-state-forest","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-seminole-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}