A Man Has Died After Crashing His Car Into An 11-Foot Alligator In Florida
The creature actually totalled the man's car.
An alligator crossing the street.
If the idea of an alligator wasn't scary enough already, it turns out they can also be a genuine danger to you even if you're in a car.
On March 24, a man in Florida died in a car accident after hitting an 11-foot alligator that was in the middle of the road.
Per the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, the 59-year-old man, John Hopkins, was on his way home from work in the town of Lithia, Florida, a suburb of Tampa.
He was driving eastbound on County Road 672 at about 12:30 a.m. when, less than a mile from his home, his vehicle struck an alligator that was unexpectedly in the middle of the road.
After hitting the massive reptile, he lost control of his car and swerved off the road into a ditch, flipping his vehicle in the process.
While 911 was called by a passing driver who saw the flipped car, neither Hopkins nor the alligator survived the crash.
Hopkins, who had recently started a new job, will be "missed by the whole family," his sister Jane Pyzynski told Fox 13 News. She also touched on the tragedy of losing her brother in such a freak, out-of-nowhere accident.
"It's bizarre," said Pyzynski. "An 11-foot alligator [...] is a big alligator to begin with, but then to just total the car."
"He died instantly is what we were told," continued Hopkins' sister. "He was the apple in my mother's eye, so to speak."
Police say that the investigation into the accident is ongoing.
This alligator was just one of the millions of wild gators that live in the states of Florida and Louisiana, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimating that around 1.3 alligators live in Florida alone.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.