A woman paddleboarding in a lagoon at Silver Springs State Park, had a dangerous encounter with an alligator.
Vicky Reamy Baker, of Ocala, was sitting on her paddleboard as a gator slowly glided through the water right up to her paddleboard. Baker began pushing it away with her paddle, but that didn’t work, as it made it mad and hissed at her. A man suggested backing up, considering she just made him pretty mad, as finally, the gator slowly swam away.
There are alligators in all 67 Florida counties and more than 200,000 alligators in the Everglades. It’s rare for people to be hurt by gators in Florida, but it does happen. Most alligators are naturally afraid of humans but may lose that fear when people feed them, according to the Fish and Wildlife Commission.