{"id":885846,"date":"2026-10-17T19:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/885846\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T19:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T19:56:09","slug":"71-year-old-man-dies-after-alligator-attack-while-fishing-in-florida-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/885846\/","title":{"rendered":"71-year-old man dies after alligator attack while fishing in Florida, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 71-year-old man died after an alligator attacked him while he was fishing, authorities said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Steven Hamilton was fishing at Dr. Bradford Memorial Park in Winter Garden, Florida \u2014 a city about 15 miles west of Orlando \u2014 when he was bitten by an alligator, according to a statement from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n

Responding emergency personnel relayed reports that witnesses had seen someone possibly grabbed by an alligator and pulled into the water, according to a recording radio traffic. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the FWC said. <\/p>\n

The Winter Garden Police Department confirmed the incident in a statement, adding that FWC authorities trapped and killed the roughly 12-foot-long alligator.<\/p>\n

The FWC said that \u201cserious injuries caused by alligators<\/a> are rare in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, a 31-year-old woman died<\/a> after an alligator bit off one of her arms and mauled the other at nearby Little Big Econ State Forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways be aware of your surroundings. Always be safe,\u201d Winter Garden police Capt. Michael Mason told reporters, according to NBC affiliate WESH 2 News<\/a>. \u201cLocal wildlife, respect it, keep your distance. It looks like it\u2019s docile, it looks like your Florida emblem, but it can be dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mason encouraged witnesses of the incident to reach out to authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 71-year-old man died after an alligator attacked him while he was fishing, authorities said on Friday. Steven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-885846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}