{"id":430070,"date":"2026-10-17T01:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T01:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430070\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T01:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T01:34:08","slug":"nearly-12-foot-alligator-kills-fisherman-in-winter-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430070\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 12-foot alligator kills fisherman in Winter Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2013 A man was killed by a nearly 12-foot-long alligator at a park in Winter Garden on Friday evening, according to the fire department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Fire Chief Jose Gainza told News 6 the incident happened at Dr. Bradford Memorial Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Gainza explained that the man was fishing on the shoreline and was pulled in. He died during the incident, though first responders were able to recover the body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">[RELATED: Alligator attacks man at Central Florida park]<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Per the fire chief, the pond was \u201cfully active\u201d with several alligators, so rescuers initially couldn\u2019t go into the water. The victim \u2014 later identified as Steven Hamilton, 71 \u2014 was reportedly in the water for an hour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">Officials said the alligator was \u201cdispatched\u201d by agents with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">\u201cThe FWC extends its deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of the victim during this difficult time,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-dLMFU sc-fHjqPf jbiTJv kYFPaL article-text\">No additional information has been provided at this time.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINTER GARDEN, Fla. \u2013 A man was killed by a nearly 12-foot-long alligator at a park in Winter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[13925,1684,4424,1335,139,141,140,25863],"class_list":["post-430070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-alligators","tag-animals","tag-death-investigation","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-winter-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430070","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=430070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}