UPDATE: The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office called of its search for the missing 71-year-old man who was dismembered in front of his wife before presumably being dragged off and killed while she ran for help.
The man’s death is being considered a fatal casualty attributed to Hurricane Ida’s flood waters in the area.
SLIDELL, La. (WGNO) — In what WGNO’s Anna McAllister called a “horrific story” while live on the scene at Avery Estates in St. Tammany Parish, a Slidell man was reportedly attacked and dismembered by an alligator on Monday.
The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office received a call around 11:30 a.m. from a woman claiming her husband was attacked by an alligator. According to the STPSO, the retired elderly man had gone under his home to retrieve tools needed to repair damage caused by Hurricane Ida on Sunday.
After hearing a commotion, the wife reportedly ran outside just in time to see her husband in the jaws of the alligator as the killer reptile ripped the man’s arm from his body. After struggling to get her husband onto the first step of the house, the woman immediately went to get help, but upon her return her husband was gone.
Search and rescue teams spent the remainder of the day looking for the injured man. Despite no signs of the victim, the STPSO has yet to pronounce him dead.
With nearby water levels elevated to more than four feet due to torrential rainfall received from the killer storm, the attack is being considered Hurricane Ida-related.