The incident happened shortly before 8 p.m. Friday at Boca Royale Golf and Country Club in Englewood, about 30 miles south of Sarasota. The woman fell into a pond along the trail near her home “and struggled to stay afloat,” the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Boca Royale Golf and Country Club in Englewood, Fla., is seen here in a Google Maps Street View image from May 2022. Google Street View Maps “While in the water two alligators were observed near the victim and eventually grabbed her while she was in the water,” the sheriff’s office said. The woman, who has not been identified by authorities, was pronounced dead at the scene. An alligator trapper from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission responded and removed the alligators as part of the investigation, the sheriff’s office said. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said an 8′ 10-inch alligator and a 7′ 7-inch alligator seen near the lake were removed. The agency said it is not currently known if alligators were involved in the incident, but that it does not plan to remove additional alligators from the area at this time. “FWC and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office will work together on this investigation until the cause of death is determined by the Sarasota County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the agency said in a statement. No further information was released by the sheriff’s office amid the investigation. Boca Royale Golf and Country Club told ABC News it has no comment at this time. The country club sits on a 1,000-acre private gated community that features lakes and nature preserves, according to its website. Fatal alligator bites are rare. From 1948 to 2021, Florida reported 442 unprovoked alligator bite incidents, 26 of which resulted in death, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Over the past 10 years, the state has averaged eight unprovoked bites a year that require medical treatment, the agency said. The chance of someone being seriously injured during an unprovoked alligator incident in Florida is about 1 in 3.1 million, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A man believed to have been searching for Frisbees in a lake was killed in a suspected alligator attack in late May in Largo, a city in the Tampa Bay area, police said.
