The family of an 88-year-old South Carolina woman killed by an alligator in a lagoon near her home sued the owners and managers of her retirement community, alleging “manmade ponds and ponding basins” drew the animal to the area.
The lawsuit says Nancy Becker “endured excruciating pain and suffering, including severed limbs”, the Washington Post reported.
Filed on Monday in Beaufort county, South Carolina, the suit alleges negligence and wrongful death and argues the attack could have been prevented.
It also argues that the alligator was attracted to water features set up by Del Webb Communities, which the suit alleges failed to “ensure against natural hazards such as alligators”.
The lawsuit also names as defendants Sun City Hilton Head, the community Becker lived in, and an administrator.
Becker was gardening in her back yard on 15 August when she fell into the lagoon. At about 11.15am, police were alerted about an alligator near the pond that appeared to be “guarding what was believed to be a human”, the Beaufort county sheriff said.
“On scene, emergency personnel located a deceased female, as well as an alligator,” the sheriff said on Facebook. “Around 1pm, the deceased was recovered.”
According to local media outlet WYFF 4, Becker died as a result of blunt force trauma.
The South Carolina department of natural resources worked to locate, capture, remove and euthanize the alligator.
The family lawsuit now claims Del Webb Communities “breached” its residential duties “by designing and constructing ponds and ponding basins within the community which attracted hazards and predators such as alligators, without adequate safeguards and protections”.
Becker’s family alleges Sun City Hilton Head and employees “were aware of the hazards and risks of alligators” but did not take necessary measures to prevent the animals accessing the ponds or to “warn the dangers of alligator attacks to the public”.
The community and its managers did not comment.
Joe McCulloch, an attorney and law professor at the University of South Carolina, told WASV, a local NBC affiliate: “A plane crashes on the hood of your car is not a foreseeable event. But if you have had an attack out of that same lagoon, or you have had reports of a threatening alligator that has been seen by neighbors and something less than swift action has occurred, that is the mother’s milk of plaintiff’s lawsuits.”
