Alligator Attacks, Kills South Carolina Woman Walking Her Dog

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC — A South Carolina woman was attacked and killed by an alligator around 9:30 a.m. Monday as she walked her dog near a lagoon inside the Sea Pines Plantation resort community, authorities said. The woman, 45-year-old Cassandra Cline, was pulled under water by the approximately 8-foot alligator, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office report.

A forensic autopsy will be conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina to determine the cause of death, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

The dog was not harmed in the attack.

The alligator was captured and euthanized, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources spokesman Capt. Robert McCullough told The Post and Courier.

Cline is only the second person in South Carolina to have died in an alligator-related incident. The state’s first-recorded alligator-related fatality was in July 2016 when an elderly woman was attacked by a gator at an assisted-living facility in West Ashley.

According to the state Department of Natural Resources, alligators are typically not aggressive toward humans. When they do attack, injuries are generally not fatal, but can be severe, as alligators often seize an appendage and twist it off by spinning.

In most serious attacks, the victims were unaware of the alligator before the attack, according to the DNR. Most attacks occur in water, but alligators have assaulted humans and pets on land.

People who are walking their pets often are the secondary target after the pet escapes, the DNR says.

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