Fort Stewart Soldier Saved Woman From Gators in Georgia

Soldier pulls woman from alligator-infested Fort Stewart pond
Army Times
Sep. 21, 2014

“I saw someone who needed help,” he said in the release. “I didn’t think, I just wanted to get the person out of the car.”

Pfc. Nathan Currie, an EOD specialist for the 756th Explosive Ordnance Detachment, rescued a woman after her car went into a pond at Fort Stewart, Georgia. (Army)

Like many soldiers in his situation, Pfc. Nathan Currie credited his Army training for informing his actions when he saved a woman from drowning last month at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

But few Army courses deal directly with diving into an alligator- and snake-infested pond to fish a stranger out of a sedan. That’s exactly what Currie, 28, did, interrupting his first fishing trip to Holbrook Pond after hearing a car splash into the water, according to an Army news release.

Currie, with 756th Explosive Ordnance Company, 63rd EOD Battalion, 52nd EOD Group, felt a body in the back seat of the car on his first dive, then went down again to retrieve the woman, according to the Tuesday release from 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Command, his unit’s parent outfit.
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Marine Reservists Capture Record 792 Pound Gator

Marine sergeant and friends bag record-setting alligator
Military Times
By Joshua Stewart
Staff writer
September 18, 2014

Sgt. Jesse Phillips, inset, a mortarman with 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, hunted a 792-pound alligator, with two of his friends. It measured more than 13-feet from the tip of the nose to the tail, and broke a Mississippi state record. (Courtesy of Jesse Phillips)

The next time Sgt. Jesse Phillips has to train in the swamp, he’ll be all too familiar with the type of beasts that might be slithering around his boots.

The mortarman with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, an Alabama-based Reserve unit, made history on Sept. 2 when he and his friends caught a 792-pound alligator in Mississippi. The gator measured in at nearly 13 ½ feet from nose to tail, had a belly that was 69 ¼ inches in girth, and a tail that spanned 51 inches around.

It was the first time the sergeant went alligator hunting, and it paid off. According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, their alligator was the largest male ever caught in the state.

“During my swamp training I’m going to think about it a lot different now that I’ve snagged a 13-foot, five-inch gator,” Phillips told Marine Corps Times. “I don’t like snakes and I don’t like gators. But it ended up good — I faced my fears.”
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Florida veteran in wheelchair saved from gators in pond, pants not so lucky

UPDATE
Two jump in pond to save disabled veteran and a third man helped from shore
By: Jacqueline Ingles
By: WFTS

LEALMAN, Fla. - After double-amputee Robert Lunay fell into a pond in Florida, two bystanders, Robert Fields and Norman Steers, heard him calling for help and jumped in to rescue him. A third man, who couldn't swim, also came to the rescue.

"I thought about those alligators in the water but I really didn't care," said Fields. "He is veteran. I want to respect him. I took off my clothes and just told him to hold on, hold on, jumped in the water and grabbed him."

Lunay, 79, was looking over the pond behind the Disabled American Veterans office at 4801 37th Street North in Lealman, Fla., when his wheelchair slipped and he rolled into the pond.

Robert Baca heard the screams from inside the DAV and came running.
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Veteran stuck in wheelchair saved from pond
Bay News
Saturday, May 18, 2013

Veteran: 'I'm not sure how I fell in the pond' LEALMAN

Veteran Robert Lunay, 79, was saved by two people in Lealman after his wheelchair slipped in a pond and he rolled into the water on Friday night.

"Only thing I remember was being in the water, I don't know how I got in there, I must have got too close, because it was just getting dark," Lunay said.

Lunay said on his way home he often pulls into the pond to look at the water and watch for alligators.

"I'm not sure how I got into the water or how I lost my pants either...The gator ate em!" Lunay said.
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Triple Amputee Marine wrestles gator on "Gator Boys"

Want an emotional lift this Monday morning? This will do it! Great video!

'Gator Boys': Severely Injured Marine, Corporal Todd Love, Wrestles An Alligator
(VIDEO)
Posted: 07/02/2012

On "Gator Boys" (Sun., 9 p.m. EST on Animal Planet) Sunday night Paul Bedard and Jimmy Riffle helped make a wounded veteran's dream come true.

Todd Love, Corporal USMC, lost both his legs and his left arm in an IED explosion in Afghanistan in October 2010.

Despite the severity of his injuries, Todd had not given up on his dream of wrestling an alligator, and so the "Gator Boys" obliged. He also got to touch an 11-feet-long alligator on the nose.
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Alligator invites himself into Palmetto home

Off topic but part of life in Florida

Alligator invites himself into Palmetto home

(Photo/Jimmy Pollack) Seeing the gator was quite a shock for homeowner Alexis Dunbar, who had just walked in her front door.
PALMETTO --
A Manatee County woman got quite a surprise Saturday when she found a 6-foot alligator in her house.

Seeing the gator was quite a shock for homeowner Alexis Dunbar, who had just walked in her front door.

"I look to the right," she said. "And there's an alligator in my guest bedroom."

Dunbar immediately got out of the house, and became concerned for her pets.

see more pictures and read more here
Alligator invites himself into Palmetto home

Florida: A dangerous place to live

I agree with this! They left out the rain. Coming from New England, I was used to white-outs with snow storms but never once heard of a "rain out" when you cannot see in front of you at all. I've been trapped on many highways when this happens. Not much fun that's for sure. Then there is the fact we moved from Massachusetts in 2004 right before Charlie, Francis and Jean decided to blow thru for a visit. We were told that Central Florida didn't have hurricanes before we decided where to live.

There is much to enjoy about Florida. One thing that's for sure is, there is never a dull moment on the news.

Florida: A dangerous place to live Florida may represent a paradise found for folks escaping frigid, northern climes. Newcomers, however, may not realize that while our state has natural beauty, it is also fraught with natural threats. Consider lightning strikes: Central Florida is the U.S. capital. And, statewide, lightning causes more weather-related deaths than all other kinds of weather events combined, according to the National Weather Service. Florida has been socked by three of the top 10 deadliest hurricanes; eight of the most costly; and five of the most intense, according to historical data compiled by the National Hurricane Center in Miami. We have shark attacks on the coast and sinkholes pock-marking our porous interior.

Destructive tornadoes have raked our region several times. And we 18 million or so Floridians share this uncertain environment with about 1.25 million alligators, a native species known to occasionally attack people, and an estimated "tens of thousands" of Burmese pythons, a non-native species that is proving to live up to its alpha-predator status.
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A dangerous place to live Florida

Gator-bite victim: 'I lost my arm, but I gained my life'"

Gator
(MIKE GODWIN, GATORLAND / November 16, 2006)
An alligator swims in the shallows at Gatorland.

Gator-bite victim: 'I lost my arm, but I gained my life'
Oct 17, 2008

Four months after losing his left arm in an alligator attack, Kasey Edwards, 19, was beaming with gratitude. Edwards, who said he had neither the time nor desire to be depressed, came to Orlando to meet with the prosthetic experts who have given him a new limb -- and a new perspective on life.
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After Hurricane Ike, gators, dead cows keep families from hunting kin

Gators, dead cows, keep families from hunting kin
Alligators loom over submerged cars. Mountains of debris are embedded in the ground. Cows, trucks and the remnants of homes are sunk into the ocean. And unverified sightings of missing loved ones are making the rounds. More than 300 people are missing since Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast last month, and the obstacles to finding them are frustrating family and friends who desperately want to know if their loved ones are dead or alive. full story

Gators run wild in Sanford FL after Tropical Storm Fay

Invasion! Critters run wild in Central Florida after Fay
Flooding has turned wildlife habitats upside down, sending critters outside their typical territories. In the process, humans are having unpleasant -- and sometimes deadly -- encounters with the natural world.

Nuisance-gator trapper Jerry Flynn has four alligators in his truck in Sanford. (Jacob Langston, Orlando Sentinel)

"There's an alligator in my kitchen!"

A Florida woman was shocked to find an eight-foot alligator had made its way into her kitchen Monday night.
(ABC News)

Fla. Woman's Surprise Guest: An Eight-Foot Alligator
A 911 Operator Thought an Iguana, Not a Gator, Might Be in Sandra Frosti's Kitchen
By IMAEYEN IBANGA
April 23, 2008
When 69-year-old Sandra Frosti heard a noise outside her Oldsmar, Fla., bedroom Monday night, she investigated and was shocked to see an uninvited houseguest in her kitchen — an 8-foot alligator.

A Florida woman was shocked to find an eight-foot alligator had made its way into her kitchen Monday night.
(ABC News)

"I was in my bedroom and I heard a noise. And I walked in and he was in the kitchen. Shock. How about that? But I'm not a screamer, so I just went 'Oh my God' and I ran to the telephone," Frosti said.


Frosti called 911 from her bedroom, where a recording documented her surprise.


"There's an alligator in my kitchen," she told an operator. "It's huge."
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4708496
I will often look at my husband and wonder what kind of state we moved into. Nothing like this happened back in Massachusetts! The strangest thing we had was a bear and her cubs running around our city.