Florida Man Has Close Encounter With Alligator in Park

A man had a close call with an alligator that lunged at him in a Florida park on June 13.

Foster Thorbjornsen was taking a walk in John S Taylor Park in Largo, Florida, when he noticed the large reptile about 20 feet from the shore of Taylor Lake. The footage shows the reptile staring at him from the water before lunging forward.

Thorbjornsen wrote in a Facebook post that he “stopped to take close-up pictures of him with my zoom lens, while he stared back at me with cold, dark, menacing eyes.”

Thorbjornsen continued to record the alligator as it lunged toward him.

“The timing of his charge was deliberate. He waited for me to turn and look away. It was nerve-wracking and intense,” Thorbjornsen wrote.

Thorbjornsen said it was the biggest gator he had ever seen in the wild, and estimated it to be about 8 to 10 feet long.

In May, a 47-year-old man was found dead near the shoreline of Taylor Lake after he had “suffered injuries related to alligators in the lake,” local media reported. Alligator trappers later captured and killed two alligators from the lake. Credit: Foster Thorbjornsen via Storyful

Video transcript

FOSTER THORBJORNSEN: Whoa! [LAUGHS]

Whoa! [LAUGHS]

Whoa!

Whoa! [LAUGHS]

Whoa! [LAUGHS]

Whoa! [LAUGHS]