Woman killed in alligator attack on dry land
A jogger in the US was killed by an alligator which ripped her arms off before dragging her body into a canal.
Yovy Suarez Jimenez had been out for a run along a bicycle path by the waterway near her home in Davie, Florida, when she was savaged by the 8 to 10ft reptile on Tuesday.
It severed both her arms near her shoulders and bit her back and right leg in what wildlife experts said was an unusual attack because it happened out of the water.
Medical experts said the 28-year-old law student died quickly while still on land, from a combination of blood loss and shock.
The next day construction workers found Miss Jimenez’s body floating in the canal, with her Nike trainers, sports bra and cycling shorts still intact.
Trappers are now hunting the alligator, which wildlife officials said would be killed and its stomach contents examined.
Nobody saw the attack, but passers by told the police they saw a woman matching Miss Jimenez’s description dangling her feet from a bridge over the canal that evening.
Miss Jimenez, who lived in a mobile-home park a few miles away, had been seen by her family as she left in jogging clothes. She later spoke to her mother on her mobile phone, telling her she was sitting under a bridge by the canal feeling depressed.
Mrs Jimenez told a local TV station she offered to pick her daughter up, but that she said no before they were cut off.
“It is my professional opinion that the alligator attacked the woman while she was on land,” Broward County medical examiner Dr Joshua Perper told The Miami Herald.
“She died of traumatic injuries sustained by an alligator attack, a mixture of blood loss and shock, and in my opinion died very fast.”
He ruled out drowning because little water was found in Miss Jimenez’s stomach and lungs.
“I do not recall an alligator attack of this kind ever taking place in Broward or Miami-Dade,” Dr Perper added, saying he was not sure why the alligator had behaved so aggressively.
“When they are hungry they can be very very aggressive and attack for food purposes,” he suggested.
Miss Jimenez’s sister Angie told CBS4: “She was a great girl, a beautiful girl, full of charisma.
“She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
A 7ft alligator specimen was caught last night but it was not the one that killed Miss Jimenez.
There have been 25 fatal alligator attacks in Florida since 1948.
