Alligator kills Hilton Head woman trying to protect her dog

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — A woman trying to protect her dog was killed by an alligator who pulled her into a lagoon at a private South Carolina resort Monday, authorities said.

Cassandra Cline, 45, of Hilton Head Island, was walking the dog along a residential area of Sea Pines Resort when she was attacked, state and local officials said. The 8-foot alligator was later found and killed, said David Lucas, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

“She was walking the dog near the lagoon and the alligator came out of the water and tried to get the dog,” Lucas said. “The lady tried to rescue the dog, and a maintenance worker ran over to help.”

Both were trying to save the dog, but the alligator dragged the woman into the water, he said. The dog was unharmed. “It’s common practice when we have an aggressive alligator like that, we put it down, but it will take some take to confirm it’s the right alligator,” said Capt. Robert McCullough of the Department of Natural Resources.

“It’s odd because this is the first time we’ve heard about an aggressive alligator around a human in the five years that we’ve been living here,” Blake Smith, 34, told The Island Packet newspaper.

Smith said that at times, alligators have been spotted in yards or pools, but Sea Pines quickly removed those animals.

“They do a good job. This is just a sad incident,” he said. “I have a young son, so it’s kind of concerning to see something like this could happen.”

The Sea Pines Resort is in the southern third of Hilton Head Island, its website says.

Since 1976, there have only been about 20 attacks on people in the state, Lucas said. Until 2016, none of those attacks had been fatal. In 2016, a 90-year-old woman wandered away from a Charleston assisted-living facility and was found dead in a pond.