A resident in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, area was dragged into a pond by an alligator and then killed on Friday morning, according to local police.
At 11:45 a.m., officials at the Horry County Fire Department responded to the scene where they removed both the victim and alligator from the pond, according to the Horry County Police Department.
The victim was "near the retention pond at the time of the initial incident," according to police, who said that after taking hold of the resident, the alligator "retreated into the retention pond."
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and an alligator-removal service "determined that the alligator should be humanely euthanized on site," according to the police department.
The Horry County Police Department is still investigating the death of the resident to determine whether or not foul play was involved.
The identity of the victim has not yet been made available.
Alligator attacks are rare in the state, even with more than 100,000 calling South Carolina home, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.
The animals are also common elsewhere in the south. A Florida man was bit by a seven-foot-long alligator earlier this month after he initially thought it was a dog.
In South Carolina, there have only been three other fatal encounters with alligators. The last was in 2020 when a 58-year-old in Kiawah Island was attacked. The other two occurred in 2018 on Hilton Head Island and in 2016 when an elderly woman became the first recorded alligator death in state history.
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