You can’t really feel bad for Texas transplant Tommie Woodward after he was killed early Friday morning by an alligator at a Texas marina around 2:30 a.m. If you’re going to go swimming in an area where locals noticed a big alligator, you’re probably going to pay the price. That’s just how the world works and Tommie found out the hard way.
Let’s go to KFDM for the details:
“One minute he’s there and then the next minute he’s gone,” Michelle Wright said.
What started as a night of fun at Burkhart’s Marina in Orange ended with the fatal attack early Friday morning.
“I asked him please do not go swimming, there’s a bigger alligator out here, just please stay out of the water,” Wright, an employee at the restaurant, said.
Workers report they spotted a ten-foot gator in the waters of Adams Bayou this week, prompting them to post a warning sign reading “No Swimming Alligators.”
Orange, Texas is on I-10, just minutes from the Louisiana border. The locals, no matter how drunk they might get, know not to dick with the gators when they’re on the prowl. Tommie had only spent a few years in Texas so he might’ve missed the memo.
The hubris was so thick that night that Tommie even went Richard Sherman on that gator.
“He said blank the alligators and thereupon jumped into the water,” Orange County Justice of the Peace Rodney Price said.
Price said the 28-year old was almost immediately attacked and another young girl jumped in after him.
“Next thing I know this girl is screaming an alligators got him, an alligator’s got him and I grab a flashlight trying to zoom it over the water, trying to find him,” Wright said. “The next thing I know, I don’t even know how long it was, I saw his body floating face down and then he’s up there for a couple seconds and then he gets dragged back down and pulled off.”
Wright said he disappeared in the water.
“I kept trying to figure out and calling his name and calling his name and he just, he was dead. And it’s heartbreaking,” Wright said.
Look, this kind of stuff happens. Sometimes you jump in the waters and survive, which leads to an epic night with a hot chick who’s turned on by your big balls. Other nights you lose and die. That’s just the life that daredevils live. 99.9% of you just wouldn’t understand.
There’s a Tommie memorial fund if you’d like to give.
