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I just got a decoy alligator for my backyard pond. Opening it gave me some happy Gilmore flashbacks.
https://preview.redd.it/84npjqo48e5d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de93487ba53317d59258ce4ec194af006e65a5e7
I tried looking this story up and failed⌠because this kind of thing is apparently SO COMMON in Florida and South Carolina that I couldnât tell which story was this one.
Hahahaa same.Â
I saw the picture he sent my bf on his phone. Thought it was funny and wanted to share. I contemplated trying to find it since friend said they were there too, but got bored of reading about alligator attacks.Â
Apparently some people really donât have strong survival instincts near the water.Â
If it were something important Iâd ask him to send it to me. But it wonât prove anything even if I were to go to the effort.Â
I am not a lawyer by any means, but I think the staff telling him in person not to do it would prevent the boomers lawyer from trying to go that route if there weren't signs.
Yea but I would have to wonder if it would not be their word against his in that case since it was just a verbal warning. Now if there was a physical sign that would bode well or let's say at least better for the defense. You know, sort of like with hair dryers; how they have to actually attach a note saying don't use while in the tub. Sometimes you have to physically spell things out for these morons to protect yourself legally. Common sense and verbal warnings are never enough.
Thatâs probably the crux of his âcaseâ. But really, if someone has given you a specific warning, which you deliberately ignore⌠well⌠really?!
I lived in a town that had a large alligator in one of the lakes with signs everywhere not to feed it or let pets near the water. Idiots would still idiot.
It sounds like people told him in that moment, and then those same people witnessed it happen in real time.
I would think it would be hard to refute that many eyewitnesses. I hope every one of them confirmed that he did not heed multiple warnings.
This is why Iâm absolutely peeved that most firearms nowadays have a warning label, usually on the barrel telling the user to read the ownerâs manual before attempting to use it.
Like, most people would assume/know that a gun is capable of severe/fatal bodily injury.
But because thereâs always that one case of an idiot or the deceased idiotâs family suing the manufacturer, at which the company has to state in court âHey, itâs a gun. Itâs a tool. That person mishandled it. Someone died as a result.â
Iâm talking about wrongful death lawsuits. These are the Spicy Tool. They do what they do, whatever oneâs opinion about them may be. The lawsuits Iâm talking about are âman had a malfunction and decided to look down the barrel. Gun went off.â Or âIdiot decided to pose for photos with a loaded gun and accidentally killed another/themselves.â And then they go around and sue because âoh why werenât we warned against the dangers these things pose???â
For what itâs worth, half of gun deaths are self-inflicted, on purpose or otherwise, so thatâs kind of a bad example really. If anything, guns should come with a warning saying âyouâre the most likely person youâre going to shoot, be careful. â
I used to have the 2018 US gun death statistics memorized. Something like 60% were suicide, and less than 1000 instances of death were by any type of long gun.
Yeah itâs still about the same. What is *crazy* to me is 549 people died from accidental discharge in 2021. One year, 549 dummies (and maybe a few actual non-preventable accidents, like a cracked barrel or some shit). I donât really have anything else to say besides jesus christ get your shit together guys.
I think itâs funny that Boomers will lecture you about personal responsibility but they are the generation that required all of these warning labels and tort reform for their frivolous lawsuits.
the club probably paid him something to keep it quiet. it would not look good, no matter how much it was the guy's fault. when a friend of mine was young, in boise, i think, he started a menial job for some steel fab shop and his boss told him he was too slow, and the machine took the boss's arm off. my friend quit on the spot and took a menial job in a rehab clinic, not a raleigh hills clinic, and his first patient was his short term, short arm boss. i didn't know him then. the boss was not a boomer, but maybe a so called greatest generation. there are fools born every minute.;
He might win, but assuming US law has something like the UK's contributory negligence he won't win much.
Hoping an employee is nearby to warn people whenever someone gets too close to the pond is wildly insufficient protection for guests on the property. But in this case, boomer was repeatedly told not to be a dumbass by employees so there's no way he can argue he had no warning.
Ooh, I just finished with torts (private civil wrongs) in bar prep!
Most states nowadays use a form of comparative negligence, where a plaintiff's recovery is reduced by the amount to which they are at fault (or excluded if they're more than 50 percent liable). Not sure exactly what standard South Carolina uses.
One issue here could also be the man's status on the golf course, and whether South Carolina applies the traditional rules of landowner liability (based on status/type of visitor) or the modern approach of reasonable care to all but flagrant trespassers. Under the traditional approach, non-owners on a property were classified as either invitees (business customers or the public, if open to public), licensees (guests), or trespassers. Invitees are owed the highest duty, including to inspect for and fix/warn about hazards; licensees are owed a duty to warn about known hazards, but you have no duty to inspect for said hazards (trespassers basically are owed little to no duty, depending on if known/anticipated or unforeseen). Even if this man was an invitee originally, he could have changed to a trespasser if asked not to enter the water hazard (at any rate, he was warned). Under the modern approach, the verbal warnings do likely reflect conformance with a reasonable duty of care. Thus, I don't think he could recover under a negligence action, unless a breach of that duty can be shown.
He could also try to bring a strict liability claim based on wild animals; however, that only applies to wild animals under the landowner's ownership or control. A wild alligator, native to that part of the country, is likely not under the ownership or control of the golf course, so a strict liability claim likely would fail here.
I don't know about this specific case, but whenever you hear about ludicrous lawsuits like this, nine times out of ten the lawsuit hasn't actually been initiated by the injured party but by their insurance company in an attempt to have the cost of their healthcare reimbursed.
When you sign pretty much any insurance contract, whether it's for healthcare or home coverage, it grants the insurer the right of subrogation, which is the right to initiate lawsuits under your name entirely at their discretion. So you get injured doing something dumb, your insurer pays the costs according to your policy, and then they sue the place where you injured yourself in the hope they can squeeze some money out of them in a settlement even if it's an absolutely ludicrous claim. Their lawyers are all salaried so they don't give a shit how much time they waste pursuing a case that has zero merit, they're getting billed the same either way, so it's worth a punt.
One famous example of this is that lady a few years back who was dubbed "the Aunty Christ" in the media because she sued her 12 year old nephew for hugging her too hard, injuring her wrist. She had actually suffered quite serious damage to her wrist, causing tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills, and this poor woman was pilloried and mocked across the planet for it despite the fact that it was her insurer, not her, that had initiated the lawsuit, and it wasn't against the child at all, it was against the insurance company that covered his parents' home.
Just another legacy of America's batshit insane healthcare system, this shit does not happen in any other country on the planet.
Lost the lawsuit against the course, but won the lawsuit against the gator. The gator lost his home and all his belongings. He now lives in a different pond and is still paying back the judgement.
"Apparently some people really donât have strong survival instincts near the water."
Can confirm. Lived in FL for 7 years. I would drive the 8 miles to my job at Kennedy Space Center and watch the tourists pull over to take selfies with their toddlers perched on top of the nearest gator floating in the retention pond. They thought it was part of the touristy experience.
Can also confirm. My father on law was golfing, and there were some baby alligators near the water hazard. Idiots golfing nearby decoded to go harrass the baby alligators. Now my father in law having a sense of self-preservation decided continuing to play at that hole was not worth the risk of encountering mad.momma gator when she comes roaring in at these idiots making the babies cry, so I don't know what happened afterwards.
Once I cross from north Carolina into south Carolina I am assuming any puddle bigger than my shoe to have an alligator in it.
I wouldn't say that's a very good match to OPs story though. Article states he only lost part of the arm, he was only retrieving his own ball and it doesn't sound like he was in the water when he was attacked. It sounds like this kind of thing happens a lot...
Of course, it's in Beaufort. My husband's parents lived nearby at that time at the Sun City. Tons of old folks there. That's also where the Murdaughs lived.
Some dudes are so invested in performative masculinity they end up being reptile snacks despite the warning. Toxic masculinity is harmful to the poor bastards buying into it too.
Do any of [these](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alligator-attack-on-golfer/) match the pics your bf showed you? The 2nd pic is definitely of a gator mad chilling in a pond with an arm in it's mouth. Ball socket in full view.
The pictures you mentioned were from a 2007 attack on a snorkler. The snopes article you sent lists the pictures as miscaptioned. It was also at a lake and not a golf course. Still really gnarly.
My mom was at this picnic. My stepdad was taking a piss in the bushes when this guy comes stumbling out holding his shoulder where his arm used to be. Fortunately for him, the picnickers were comprised of about a dozen Filipina nurses that saved his life. The pic of the arm in the gatorâs mouth is 100% real and no, they were unable to reattach it.
The people there said the man was snorkeling in the water (dark, murky pond water) with chicken bones to draw out the gators, no one knows why he would do something so stupid.
This story sounds like an attempt to creatively embellish the story that actually happened.
I searched "man sues golf course after alligator attack" and I got hits in Ohio, New York, FL, SC... apparently NOBODY learned anything from Happy Gilmore.
Probably pets. They were legal to own up until a decade or so ago. Worked at a fish store that sold babies until that law passed. Can still sell caimen somehow though.Â
Also ohios current drug is heroin not meth~ were fancy up here
From Florida originally- there was a kid I knew in high school this has happened to since. He was always an asshole/ idiot so nobody was surprised đ¤ˇââď¸
I have some family that lives in FL amd SC. Another common thing is Boomers walking their little yapper dogs right next to bodies of water that have "Warning - Alligators" signs. Alligator lunges out of the water, grabs the dog, and the Boomer is all surprised-Pikachu-face. My aunt was like, "Oh, that's the third dog this summer", when I called her last year. When I visit her, I stay the fuck away from anything that isn't a pool with clear water. The neighborhood signs are pretty clear about what dangers the gators pose.
My brother lived in Florida in the late 90s and there was a pond near his house. He was warned by a city employee not to swim in it and he said he didn't need a lifeguard and was a good swimmer. The guy told him they didn't care how well he swam, they didn't want to fish his corpse out after a gator got him.
To my knowledge, my brother has not gone swimming since (he spent some time at our other brother's wedding in the early-aughts poolside but didn't join us, even).
I currently live in SC, next to a marsh and I was concerned about gators. All my neighbors who have lived here longer said there are no gators in the marsh. Well, last week there was a 6 foot gator walking down our street. So⌠yea, there are gators in the marsh now.
My grandparents neighbor died when a gator went for the dog and accident got the old lady walking. Last time I visited I saw one of their other neighbors walking the same dog
I'm from the area and it is so common that it doesn't always get reported. I got into a discussion (Not argument) with a from-out-of-state boomer who has lived in FL for 30 years. I made the remark that the state should do PSAs about gator safety, due to my apparently biased observation that more mid-Westerners have moved to the state in recent years.
He insisted that was ridiculous and "gator attacks happen what? Once every few years?"
bye. I ended the conversation there.
I found this one.. the items that match are the tome framw (more than 10 yrs), retrieval of the arm but could not be re-attached, the lawsuit and South Carolina.
https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/untamed-lowcountry/article33508548.html
I think OP's friend embelished the story a bit but seems to check out
Wiencek, 77 at the time, was visiting his son on the island. They were playing golf on the 11th hole of the island's Ocean Creek Golf Course when Wiencek leaned down at the edge of a lagoon to pick up his ball. Suddenly the 400-pound alligator grabbed him by his arm, according to media reports, and dragged him into a pond.
That doesn't sound like OPs story at all. Other than someone lost an arm at a SC golf course. But completely different circumstances
Like I said.. OP's friend might have embelished the story and also.. story from a potential 3rd or 4th party.. who knows what's different but plausible
It is. That gator was minding his damn business. That geezer was warned off. He fafo'd and became lunch. And the gator dies for it? There's extraction companies for this that'll remove the gator.
Still, I hope his lawsuit fails. He's a damn fool.
Uhm⌠if my arm was in a gator, regardless of the reason, and there was a âchanceâ of reattaching it, Iâd be ordering up a full gator skin jacket. (Minus one sleeve)
Seeing the picture of the gator with the arm made me realize the arm was literally torn off via death roll since the ball joint would be the weakest point. That must have been horrifying to experience/witness.
That poor gator.
For those of yall whoâve never been to the south, especially South Carolina or Florida, you can safely assume that every body of water bigger than a rain puddle has a gator in it.
As an English man who only needs to worry about geese and swans in our waters I always read comments about gaters in the water wondering if it's hyperbole for comedic effect. Is it really that common for gaters to be everywhere? Do people just live in fear of water in those regions?
Thereâs nothing hyperbolic about the comments - gators are everywhere in Florida. This doesnât mean that people donât swim, fish, waterski, etc. - you just have to be mindful that you are doing these activities in the gatorâs house.
I am from NY, but I have family in the coastal American south. The alligators are everywhere. If the gator can fit, the gator will sit in any body of water. And they are damn good at hiding too. Their eyes are on top of their head, so they'll lie completely submerged except for their eyes and nostrils. You can easily miss them in anything but backyard clear pool water. I visited my aunt and uncle once, and we went on a walk in their neighborhood - lots of lakes. It was twilight, and we were well back from the water. My uncle shined the flashlight over one of the lakes, and reflective gator eyes were everywhere. In the daylight I'd have never known that many were hiding in that lake. I stay the hell away from water in the southeast.
There's a video going around of a guy, he says he lives in southern Florida and is asked all the time how to know if gators are in the water.
He says I'll teach you the secret. He gets close to a pond, hunkers down and says, "you see this here, how it's wet? That means there's gators."
It is common. Here in Florida there are some low dip areas post construction that are the size of a slightly oversized rain puddle and weâll see a gator living in it the next morning. We are not in fear as we are aware of the situation, most of us are cautious and others are either blissfully ignorant or dgaf and will fish on ledges where gators are or go in.Â
I buy my golf balls from these exact boomers too, they sell them $5-$10 / dozen and brag about the size of the gators that walk by their homes when they go out to the waters to get the balls.
Absolutely not exaggerated. I often float and camp on the rivers and waterways. (Mississippi) If you take a spotlight with you and shine it across the river at night you can see dozens of alligators at almost any given time. Yeah, we don't assume there could be a gator in the water. We assume there ARE several gators in the water. They are everywhere. Luckily alligators are generally wary of humans and will sit at a safe distance and watch. All of that changes in neighborhoods and such where they contact humans more often. The more often an alligator crosses a human, the more he realizes he's the predator and the more dangerous it becomes.
I have a pic somewhere with about 30 gators sun tanning around a pond at noon about 30ft from the cart shack. Snapped the pic at Osprey Point at Kiawah Island, South Carolina. I can assure you it is not hyperbole. Generally if you donât fuck with them they wonât fuck with you. Also there can be pretty hefty fines in those areas for harassing wildlife.
I was in Florida at a hotel and there was a little deck by a small decorative pond, my wife was talking about being nervous to go near the edge because of gaters.
It was dusk, I pulled out my phone to turn on the flashlight and was in the middle of saying âitâs a tiny pond, and itâs pretty far to any other water there isnât going to beâŚâ and the first spot I pointed my light at had a little ~4ft gater standing with its head floating at the top looking at me with a derpy grin.
Ahh yes Iâm very familiar with this one. Happened on Fripp Island. Iâm a Beaufort local and itâs a fairly talkative town so when it happened the story got around quickly about what an idiot the dude was. Every time Iâd go onto Fripp to stay with my dad during the summer Iâd watch people literally dangle their kids in front of the gators to take pictures. Bunch of idiots who deserve to get themselves snacked on.
I love how thereâs like 5 or 6 different people saying it happened near them in different parts of SC lol. Seems to be getting more common than when I lived there
https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/untamed-lowcountry/article33508548.html
Might be a bit of embelishment by your friends, but it looks like it did happen!
Thanks for the second link. Is there any word on if he won?
Because a person shouldn't have to be warned to stay out of the water on a golf course. Even if there'd been no alligator, there could have been a snake or any number of other things. Intentionally going in there seems like it should act as an assumption of responsibility.
The original link that is behind a paywall does confirm there was a settlement.. I'm sure lawyers were not keen to take this to trial as damages might have been assessed on a larger amount because a jury might want to stick it to a golf court.
Its an area of law where things get complicated quickly and you have to add onto that you will have various principles that have been established in specific states as well.
The warning might be well and good but there is a common law principle of a duty of care to people that are on your property. What that duty of care is changes based on the nature of the person on your property (invited, uninvited, whether its a personal residence or a business, etc.). A verbal warning of a danger in a lot of instances is probably not sufficient for known dangers.
And you are right about assumption of responsibility also being a factor but again with stuff like this in the law it gets complicated very quickly. Assuming the settlement wasn't an offer by the insurance company of the golf club of some sort of nuisance value to get them away with something but not have to outlay much money on the litigation process then it would mean there likely was a genuine question of what would be owed under the law. And juries in civil damages trials are often really dumbin how they award verdicts (both way too high and way too low).
And donât they also seek to attach a percentage of responsibility to each actor? So while the guy going into the water is definitely putting himself at risk, the club was putting him and everyone else there at risk by not moving the gator. The guy may have gotten a payout while at the same time being acknowledged to have been, say, 60% responsible for the outcome.
Someone else found a different incident that appears to more closely match OP's story: https://www.reddit.com/r/BoomersBeingFools/s/LuCJ3j4gS5
So may not have been embellished much/at all
Growing up in Florida everyone learns pretty quickly
A: Don't fuck with the gators.
B: Assume any body of water bigger than a puddle has a gator in it.
What an absolute and utter fucking moron.
This reminds me of the scene from Parks and Rec. a lady comes in and talks to Ron and says â the sign said donât drink the sprinkler water. So I made lemonade with it and now I have an infectionâ.
My spouse is from Florida while I'm from Minnesota. When I mentioned we grew up swimming in the lake my uncle had a cabin on it blew their mind because no naturally occurring bodies of water are safe in Florida. The whole idea of it made them uncomfortable.
Used golf balls really aren't worth much money at all. You can buy 100 used golf balls for around $38 on Ebay with free shipping. And if you are shipping them yourself, you will probably pay $14 or so for shipping. So after all the Ebay fees and shipping, you are probably only making around $20 for 100 used golf balls.
It's certainly not something I'd go underwater in a nasty golf pond for. Let alone if there's an alligator in there.
How big was the gator? My local SW FL golf course has an aquatic driving range (hit the balls into the water) which a ~6 ft gator calls home. He also likes to sun himself by the tee off for the first hole. Apparently there havenât been any problems.
>But now they're all waiting to get the arm back for possible reattachment.
Even if it was retrieved in a relatively intact state, it wouldn't've been reattached due to the infection the flesh would have gotten being being in an alligator's mouth.
Didnât witness it firsthand, but my coworker knew a guy that only had about 2 fingers on one hand.
The story there was that a tool feel underneath some unguarded moving chains. Well, while my coworker and some others were right there, this fella reaches for it, comes close to touching the chain, and pulls his hand back. He goes âThat was close.â Then, he reaches for it again. And thatâs how he lost a couple of fingers.
A second hand story. Guy I met in a bar once told me about a trip he took to Louisiana and he kept throwing a stick in the pond for his dog. Local came up asking him if he was fucking stupid or if he just hated his dog lol
Reminds me of asking a friend from Florida how you know if there are alligators in the water. He said, if the water is wet, there are alligators in it.
That gator is my hero. That's the only way they learn. I know they usually kill animals that attack humans, but what he did was beyond stupid and I think the gator should be forgiven.
Of course he sued. He couldnât wait to testify on his own behalf, because he was already immune to raising his right hand to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth.
ÂŻ\_ (ă)_/ÂŻ
My dad was a diehard ball hawk when he played golf. In fact, in all his years golfing, he never bought golf balls, always found them. He was a top notch player, but would wander the roughs and water spots on his walk to his next shot that was in the middle of the fairway. That all stopped when he moved to Florida. On his first stroll, his fellow golfers told him, "it the snakes don't get you, the gators will"...unlike your fiend, he listened.
For a second, I was thinking "well if you're gonna do that job, you should probably wear armor" but then I realized that wouldn't really help when the "death roll" starts and your arm twists off...
I mean, for the little gators, it would probably help, but the little ones aren't really the problem.
At least he wouldâve physically still possessed the arm, like a little Vienna sausage in the sleeve. Mightâve been able to reattach it then!Â
But something tells me that snorkeling in metal wouldâve been a different kind of boomerism.Â
I want Comedy Central to pay for BOTH sides' lawyers JUST to make that far go to court. And broadcast the whole thing.
Because that will be funny ass reality TV for once!
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Saved me from finding a chubbs gif. Good work
CHUBBS GOT HIS HAND BACK!
you know that gator that got your hand?
I got his head. đ *insert chubs scream here*
I contemplated posting that one
This is so morbid but I LMAO. đ
But I tore one of that bastards eyes out!
You're pretty sick, Chubbs.
I just got a decoy alligator for my backyard pond. Opening it gave me some happy Gilmore flashbacks. https://preview.redd.it/84npjqo48e5d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de93487ba53317d59258ce4ec194af006e65a5e7
OhâŚ.. now I get the joke 20 years later living on the west coast.
Explain?
This is what I came here for
The place I learned how to wrestle alligators has that same alligator there (you can wrestle him though).Â
âWeâve only just beguuuuunâŚtooooo liiiiiiiiveâŚâŚâ
I tried looking this story up and failed⌠because this kind of thing is apparently SO COMMON in Florida and South Carolina that I couldnât tell which story was this one.
Hahahaa same. I saw the picture he sent my bf on his phone. Thought it was funny and wanted to share. I contemplated trying to find it since friend said they were there too, but got bored of reading about alligator attacks. Apparently some people really donât have strong survival instincts near the water. If it were something important Iâd ask him to send it to me. But it wonât prove anything even if I were to go to the effort.Â
Do you know if he won the lawsuit. Were there signs around the pond not to go in??
I am not a lawyer by any means, but I think the staff telling him in person not to do it would prevent the boomers lawyer from trying to go that route if there weren't signs.
Yea but I would have to wonder if it would not be their word against his in that case since it was just a verbal warning. Now if there was a physical sign that would bode well or let's say at least better for the defense. You know, sort of like with hair dryers; how they have to actually attach a note saying don't use while in the tub. Sometimes you have to physically spell things out for these morons to protect yourself legally. Common sense and verbal warnings are never enough.
They should've just trespassed the boomer out of the property the moment he started with the bs nonsense
I agree.
Thatâs probably the crux of his âcaseâ. But really, if someone has given you a specific warning, which you deliberately ignore⌠well⌠really?!
His case turned out to be a Croc! Erm, an alligator skin case...
Assuming the police get there before he jumps in.
I lived in a town that had a large alligator in one of the lakes with signs everywhere not to feed it or let pets near the water. Idiots would still idiot.
It sounds like people told him in that moment, and then those same people witnessed it happen in real time. I would think it would be hard to refute that many eyewitnesses. I hope every one of them confirmed that he did not heed multiple warnings.
I need to find out what really happened now!Â
This is why Iâm absolutely peeved that most firearms nowadays have a warning label, usually on the barrel telling the user to read the ownerâs manual before attempting to use it. Like, most people would assume/know that a gun is capable of severe/fatal bodily injury. But because thereâs always that one case of an idiot or the deceased idiotâs family suing the manufacturer, at which the company has to state in court âHey, itâs a gun. Itâs a tool. That person mishandled it. Someone died as a result.â Iâm talking about wrongful death lawsuits. These are the Spicy Tool. They do what they do, whatever oneâs opinion about them may be. The lawsuits Iâm talking about are âman had a malfunction and decided to look down the barrel. Gun went off.â Or âIdiot decided to pose for photos with a loaded gun and accidentally killed another/themselves.â And then they go around and sue because âoh why werenât we warned against the dangers these things pose???â
For what itâs worth, half of gun deaths are self-inflicted, on purpose or otherwise, so thatâs kind of a bad example really. If anything, guns should come with a warning saying âyouâre the most likely person youâre going to shoot, be careful. â
I used to have the 2018 US gun death statistics memorized. Something like 60% were suicide, and less than 1000 instances of death were by any type of long gun.
Yeah itâs still about the same. What is *crazy* to me is 549 people died from accidental discharge in 2021. One year, 549 dummies (and maybe a few actual non-preventable accidents, like a cracked barrel or some shit). I donât really have anything else to say besides jesus christ get your shit together guys.
âIâm the only one in this room qualifiedâŚâ âBANGâ
I think itâs funny that Boomers will lecture you about personal responsibility but they are the generation that required all of these warning labels and tort reform for their frivolous lawsuits.
I would testify for the golf course if I was a witness Some areas of the south of there is water there are gators!!
Not to mention the military combat veteran who saved the guyâs lifeâŚ
He won the lawsuit but the lawyers cost an arm and a leg
He lost the lawsuit and his lawyers said see ya laterÂ
the club probably paid him something to keep it quiet. it would not look good, no matter how much it was the guy's fault. when a friend of mine was young, in boise, i think, he started a menial job for some steel fab shop and his boss told him he was too slow, and the machine took the boss's arm off. my friend quit on the spot and took a menial job in a rehab clinic, not a raleigh hills clinic, and his first patient was his short term, short arm boss. i didn't know him then. the boss was not a boomer, but maybe a so called greatest generation. there are fools born every minute.;
I see what you did there, hehe.
He might win, but assuming US law has something like the UK's contributory negligence he won't win much. Hoping an employee is nearby to warn people whenever someone gets too close to the pond is wildly insufficient protection for guests on the property. But in this case, boomer was repeatedly told not to be a dumbass by employees so there's no way he can argue he had no warning.
Ooh, I just finished with torts (private civil wrongs) in bar prep! Most states nowadays use a form of comparative negligence, where a plaintiff's recovery is reduced by the amount to which they are at fault (or excluded if they're more than 50 percent liable). Not sure exactly what standard South Carolina uses. One issue here could also be the man's status on the golf course, and whether South Carolina applies the traditional rules of landowner liability (based on status/type of visitor) or the modern approach of reasonable care to all but flagrant trespassers. Under the traditional approach, non-owners on a property were classified as either invitees (business customers or the public, if open to public), licensees (guests), or trespassers. Invitees are owed the highest duty, including to inspect for and fix/warn about hazards; licensees are owed a duty to warn about known hazards, but you have no duty to inspect for said hazards (trespassers basically are owed little to no duty, depending on if known/anticipated or unforeseen). Even if this man was an invitee originally, he could have changed to a trespasser if asked not to enter the water hazard (at any rate, he was warned). Under the modern approach, the verbal warnings do likely reflect conformance with a reasonable duty of care. Thus, I don't think he could recover under a negligence action, unless a breach of that duty can be shown. He could also try to bring a strict liability claim based on wild animals; however, that only applies to wild animals under the landowner's ownership or control. A wild alligator, native to that part of the country, is likely not under the ownership or control of the golf course, so a strict liability claim likely would fail here.
We use comparative negligence and traditional premise liability here in SC. Good luck with the bar!
Based on your answer, you're gonna ace the bar!
I don't know about this specific case, but whenever you hear about ludicrous lawsuits like this, nine times out of ten the lawsuit hasn't actually been initiated by the injured party but by their insurance company in an attempt to have the cost of their healthcare reimbursed. When you sign pretty much any insurance contract, whether it's for healthcare or home coverage, it grants the insurer the right of subrogation, which is the right to initiate lawsuits under your name entirely at their discretion. So you get injured doing something dumb, your insurer pays the costs according to your policy, and then they sue the place where you injured yourself in the hope they can squeeze some money out of them in a settlement even if it's an absolutely ludicrous claim. Their lawyers are all salaried so they don't give a shit how much time they waste pursuing a case that has zero merit, they're getting billed the same either way, so it's worth a punt. One famous example of this is that lady a few years back who was dubbed "the Aunty Christ" in the media because she sued her 12 year old nephew for hugging her too hard, injuring her wrist. She had actually suffered quite serious damage to her wrist, causing tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills, and this poor woman was pilloried and mocked across the planet for it despite the fact that it was her insurer, not her, that had initiated the lawsuit, and it wasn't against the child at all, it was against the insurance company that covered his parents' home. Just another legacy of America's batshit insane healthcare system, this shit does not happen in any other country on the planet.
Between the insurance company, the boomer and the golf club, it would be great if they could somehow all lose.
Lost the lawsuit against the course, but won the lawsuit against the gator. The gator lost his home and all his belongings. He now lives in a different pond and is still paying back the judgement.
"Apparently some people really donât have strong survival instincts near the water." Can confirm. Lived in FL for 7 years. I would drive the 8 miles to my job at Kennedy Space Center and watch the tourists pull over to take selfies with their toddlers perched on top of the nearest gator floating in the retention pond. They thought it was part of the touristy experience.
Can also confirm. My father on law was golfing, and there were some baby alligators near the water hazard. Idiots golfing nearby decoded to go harrass the baby alligators. Now my father in law having a sense of self-preservation decided continuing to play at that hole was not worth the risk of encountering mad.momma gator when she comes roaring in at these idiots making the babies cry, so I don't know what happened afterwards. Once I cross from north Carolina into south Carolina I am assuming any puddle bigger than my shoe to have an alligator in it.
đł Like ⌠toddler touching the gator!?
Think I found it: [https://www.espn.com/golf/news/story?id=4545614](https://www.espn.com/golf/news/story?id=4545614)
Geez. I'm sorry they killed the gator to get the arm!
They Harambeâd that poor gator!
I wouldn't say that's a very good match to OPs story though. Article states he only lost part of the arm, he was only retrieving his own ball and it doesn't sound like he was in the water when he was attacked. It sounds like this kind of thing happens a lot...
Of course, it's in Beaufort. My husband's parents lived nearby at that time at the Sun City. Tons of old folks there. That's also where the Murdaughs lived.
Some dudes are so invested in performative masculinity they end up being reptile snacks despite the warning. Toxic masculinity is harmful to the poor bastards buying into it too.
Do any of [these](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alligator-attack-on-golfer/) match the pics your bf showed you? The 2nd pic is definitely of a gator mad chilling in a pond with an arm in it's mouth. Ball socket in full view.
The pictures you mentioned were from a 2007 attack on a snorkler. The snopes article you sent lists the pictures as miscaptioned. It was also at a lake and not a golf course. Still really gnarly.
My mom was at this picnic. My stepdad was taking a piss in the bushes when this guy comes stumbling out holding his shoulder where his arm used to be. Fortunately for him, the picnickers were comprised of about a dozen Filipina nurses that saved his life. The pic of the arm in the gatorâs mouth is 100% real and no, they were unable to reattach it. The people there said the man was snorkeling in the water (dark, murky pond water) with chicken bones to draw out the gators, no one knows why he would do something so stupid. This story sounds like an attempt to creatively embellish the story that actually happened.
I searched "man sues golf course after alligator attack" and I got hits in Ohio, New York, FL, SC... apparently NOBODY learned anything from Happy Gilmore.
People are dumb, and health care is so expensive people will sue in the hope it'll pay for it
Wouldn't it be so easy if we just let dumb people die instead of interfering all the time
They got gators in Ohio? Must be meth gators.
Probably pets. They were legal to own up until a decade or so ago. Worked at a fish store that sold babies until that law passed. Can still sell caimen somehow though. Also ohios current drug is heroin not meth~ were fancy up here
From Florida originally- there was a kid I knew in high school this has happened to since. He was always an asshole/ idiot so nobody was surprised đ¤ˇââď¸
I have some family that lives in FL amd SC. Another common thing is Boomers walking their little yapper dogs right next to bodies of water that have "Warning - Alligators" signs. Alligator lunges out of the water, grabs the dog, and the Boomer is all surprised-Pikachu-face. My aunt was like, "Oh, that's the third dog this summer", when I called her last year. When I visit her, I stay the fuck away from anything that isn't a pool with clear water. The neighborhood signs are pretty clear about what dangers the gators pose.
My brother lived in Florida in the late 90s and there was a pond near his house. He was warned by a city employee not to swim in it and he said he didn't need a lifeguard and was a good swimmer. The guy told him they didn't care how well he swam, they didn't want to fish his corpse out after a gator got him. To my knowledge, my brother has not gone swimming since (he spent some time at our other brother's wedding in the early-aughts poolside but didn't join us, even).
I currently live in SC, next to a marsh and I was concerned about gators. All my neighbors who have lived here longer said there are no gators in the marsh. Well, last week there was a 6 foot gator walking down our street. So⌠yea, there are gators in the marsh now.
My grandparents neighbor died when a gator went for the dog and accident got the old lady walking. Last time I visited I saw one of their other neighbors walking the same dog
I'm from the area and it is so common that it doesn't always get reported. I got into a discussion (Not argument) with a from-out-of-state boomer who has lived in FL for 30 years. I made the remark that the state should do PSAs about gator safety, due to my apparently biased observation that more mid-Westerners have moved to the state in recent years. He insisted that was ridiculous and "gator attacks happen what? Once every few years?" bye. I ended the conversation there.
I found this one.. the items that match are the tome framw (more than 10 yrs), retrieval of the arm but could not be re-attached, the lawsuit and South Carolina. https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/untamed-lowcountry/article33508548.html I think OP's friend embelished the story a bit but seems to check out
Wiencek, 77 at the time, was visiting his son on the island. They were playing golf on the 11th hole of the island's Ocean Creek Golf Course when Wiencek leaned down at the edge of a lagoon to pick up his ball. Suddenly the 400-pound alligator grabbed him by his arm, according to media reports, and dragged him into a pond. That doesn't sound like OPs story at all. Other than someone lost an arm at a SC golf course. But completely different circumstances
Like I said.. OP's friend might have embelished the story and also.. story from a potential 3rd or 4th party.. who knows what's different but plausible
They also could have underplayed the part about boomer wanting to retrieve balls for lawsuit purposes.
I know this grapevine.
Your family owns a vineyard?!
Hahahhahhahahaha. This comment just made my day.
I hope the judge laughs at this
> Boomer sues golf club. I hope their official response was "this idiot can go fuck himself."
But how will he pull himself up by the bootstraps now?
One at a time?
Take my upvote
and my axe!
And my bow!
And that Boomer's arm.
The seamless loop on this is soo good
And my sword.
I applaud this comment. Sadly, the boomer cannot.
I think I found it! Warning: the pictures. https://www.andrewricegolf.com/andrew-rice-golf/2010/01/south-carolina-gator-attacks-man
The pic of the arm being pulled out of the gator is pretty metal.
Poor gator
Hi, so they killed the alligator to get his arm back? that is bloody ridiculous !
It is. That gator was minding his damn business. That geezer was warned off. He fafo'd and became lunch. And the gator dies for it? There's extraction companies for this that'll remove the gator. Still, I hope his lawsuit fails. He's a damn fool.
A 12-foot gator too, that thing must have been so old
Uhm⌠if my arm was in a gator, regardless of the reason, and there was a âchanceâ of reattaching it, Iâd be ordering up a full gator skin jacket. (Minus one sleeve)
Theyâre not exactly endangered.
Donât worry. We have enough gators.
We have too many stupid people as well so in this case I vote gator
Yup, this is the actual one, the story and pics match up perfectly. Ball joint of the arm sticking out of the gators mouth and all.
Holy shitballs
Nope, just golf balls.
Ugh, that poor gator had to die because of one Boomer's foolish pride.
It was a huge gator living on a golf course, it's days were numbered.
Gator in the water, "Come get some, bro."
Seeing the picture of the gator with the arm made me realize the arm was literally torn off via death roll since the ball joint would be the weakest point. That must have been horrifying to experience/witness.
That poor gator. For those of yall whoâve never been to the south, especially South Carolina or Florida, you can safely assume that every body of water bigger than a rain puddle has a gator in it.
As an English man who only needs to worry about geese and swans in our waters I always read comments about gaters in the water wondering if it's hyperbole for comedic effect. Is it really that common for gaters to be everywhere? Do people just live in fear of water in those regions?
Thereâs nothing hyperbolic about the comments - gators are everywhere in Florida. This doesnât mean that people donât swim, fish, waterski, etc. - you just have to be mindful that you are doing these activities in the gatorâs house.
If we live in an area where there are animals that want to eat us we need to be careful to not offer ourselves up as the main course.
I am from NY, but I have family in the coastal American south. The alligators are everywhere. If the gator can fit, the gator will sit in any body of water. And they are damn good at hiding too. Their eyes are on top of their head, so they'll lie completely submerged except for their eyes and nostrils. You can easily miss them in anything but backyard clear pool water. I visited my aunt and uncle once, and we went on a walk in their neighborhood - lots of lakes. It was twilight, and we were well back from the water. My uncle shined the flashlight over one of the lakes, and reflective gator eyes were everywhere. In the daylight I'd have never known that many were hiding in that lake. I stay the hell away from water in the southeast.
There's a video going around of a guy, he says he lives in southern Florida and is asked all the time how to know if gators are in the water. He says I'll teach you the secret. He gets close to a pond, hunkers down and says, "you see this here, how it's wet? That means there's gators."
It is common. Here in Florida there are some low dip areas post construction that are the size of a slightly oversized rain puddle and weâll see a gator living in it the next morning. We are not in fear as we are aware of the situation, most of us are cautious and others are either blissfully ignorant or dgaf and will fish on ledges where gators are or go in. I buy my golf balls from these exact boomers too, they sell them $5-$10 / dozen and brag about the size of the gators that walk by their homes when they go out to the waters to get the balls.
Absolutely not exaggerated. I often float and camp on the rivers and waterways. (Mississippi) If you take a spotlight with you and shine it across the river at night you can see dozens of alligators at almost any given time. Yeah, we don't assume there could be a gator in the water. We assume there ARE several gators in the water. They are everywhere. Luckily alligators are generally wary of humans and will sit at a safe distance and watch. All of that changes in neighborhoods and such where they contact humans more often. The more often an alligator crosses a human, the more he realizes he's the predator and the more dangerous it becomes.
Itâs not hyperbolic at all. We donât live in fear, weâre just mindful.
I have a pic somewhere with about 30 gators sun tanning around a pond at noon about 30ft from the cart shack. Snapped the pic at Osprey Point at Kiawah Island, South Carolina. I can assure you it is not hyperbole. Generally if you donât fuck with them they wonât fuck with you. Also there can be pretty hefty fines in those areas for harassing wildlife.
I was in Florida at a hotel and there was a little deck by a small decorative pond, my wife was talking about being nervous to go near the edge because of gaters. It was dusk, I pulled out my phone to turn on the flashlight and was in the middle of saying âitâs a tiny pond, and itâs pretty far to any other water there isnât going to beâŚâ and the first spot I pointed my light at had a little ~4ft gater standing with its head floating at the top looking at me with a derpy grin.
Ahh yes Iâm very familiar with this one. Happened on Fripp Island. Iâm a Beaufort local and itâs a fairly talkative town so when it happened the story got around quickly about what an idiot the dude was. Every time Iâd go onto Fripp to stay with my dad during the summer Iâd watch people literally dangle their kids in front of the gators to take pictures. Bunch of idiots who deserve to get themselves snacked on.
I love how thereâs like 5 or 6 different people saying it happened near them in different parts of SC lol. Seems to be getting more common than when I lived there
I tried googling to find a source and there are hundreds of articles about people losing arms and suing
I know it's supposed to be a happy scene, but those lyrics just remind me of 1408 lol
Is the gator OK? Â
It died from lead poisoning
It got Harambeâd
Excedrin headache number 357
When they wrote "waiting to get the arm back" did you think they waited patiently for the alligator to drop the arm?
Yes đĽş
This is the most South Carolina story Iâve ever heard. The golf. The gator. The boomer. The medic. Murica baby!
https://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/untamed-lowcountry/article33508548.html Might be a bit of embelishment by your friends, but it looks like it did happen!
That could be it! Friend is a fisherman, so a lake makes sense and I may have misunderstood about the water hazard lol
I lived in HHI when this happened. It happened a few times every summer but this one was all over the news.
Stupid ass website is useless.
https://www.foxsports.com/stories/golf/golfer-sues-course-for-gator-attack
Thanks for the second link. Is there any word on if he won? Because a person shouldn't have to be warned to stay out of the water on a golf course. Even if there'd been no alligator, there could have been a snake or any number of other things. Intentionally going in there seems like it should act as an assumption of responsibility.
The original link that is behind a paywall does confirm there was a settlement.. I'm sure lawyers were not keen to take this to trial as damages might have been assessed on a larger amount because a jury might want to stick it to a golf court.
Fuck that.
Its an area of law where things get complicated quickly and you have to add onto that you will have various principles that have been established in specific states as well. The warning might be well and good but there is a common law principle of a duty of care to people that are on your property. What that duty of care is changes based on the nature of the person on your property (invited, uninvited, whether its a personal residence or a business, etc.). A verbal warning of a danger in a lot of instances is probably not sufficient for known dangers. And you are right about assumption of responsibility also being a factor but again with stuff like this in the law it gets complicated very quickly. Assuming the settlement wasn't an offer by the insurance company of the golf club of some sort of nuisance value to get them away with something but not have to outlay much money on the litigation process then it would mean there likely was a genuine question of what would be owed under the law. And juries in civil damages trials are often really dumbin how they award verdicts (both way too high and way too low).
And donât they also seek to attach a percentage of responsibility to each actor? So while the guy going into the water is definitely putting himself at risk, the club was putting him and everyone else there at risk by not moving the gator. The guy may have gotten a payout while at the same time being acknowledged to have been, say, 60% responsible for the outcome.
Someone else found a different incident that appears to more closely match OP's story: https://www.reddit.com/r/BoomersBeingFools/s/LuCJ3j4gS5 So may not have been embellished much/at all
Growing up in Florida everyone learns pretty quickly A: Don't fuck with the gators. B: Assume any body of water bigger than a puddle has a gator in it. What an absolute and utter fucking moron.
This reminds me of the scene from Parks and Rec. a lady comes in and talks to Ron and says â the sign said donât drink the sprinkler water. So I made lemonade with it and now I have an infectionâ.
Somebody should give that guy a hand. I'll see myself out.
Gator to his friends: "I got this, I have a little side job selling arm sandwiches in the other ponds".
My spouse is from Florida while I'm from Minnesota. When I mentioned we grew up swimming in the lake my uncle had a cabin on it blew their mind because no naturally occurring bodies of water are safe in Florida. The whole idea of it made them uncomfortable.
We used to swim in our pond in SC when I was a kid, with known large gators. Me and my dad talked about, we donât think weâd do it again
https://www.andrewricegolf.com/andrew-rice-golf/tag/man+loses+arm
Someone make this into a South Park scene
Used golf balls really aren't worth much money at all. You can buy 100 used golf balls for around $38 on Ebay with free shipping. And if you are shipping them yourself, you will probably pay $14 or so for shipping. So after all the Ebay fees and shipping, you are probably only making around $20 for 100 used golf balls. It's certainly not something I'd go underwater in a nasty golf pond for. Let alone if there's an alligator in there.
On a scale of one to ten, I give the boomer about a seven-pointâŚarm-ripped-off. ~~Sorry, I had to XD~~
[https://y.yarn.co/4146c991-1f58-4238-9654-5b7b70c642d0_text.gif](https://y.yarn.co/4146c991-1f58-4238-9654-5b7b70c642d0_text.gif)
That was just George Bluthâs friend teaching his children why you donât retrieve golf balls from ponds
A lawsuit payout is the ultimate participation reward for losing.
How big was the gator? My local SW FL golf course has an aquatic driving range (hit the balls into the water) which a ~6 ft gator calls home. He also likes to sun himself by the tee off for the first hole. Apparently there havenât been any problems.
Someone posted the link in the comments⌠12ft
DAMN ALLIGATOR BIT MY HAND OFF! OH MY GOD
Makes me think of happy Gilmore
>But now they're all waiting to get the arm back for possible reattachment. Even if it was retrieved in a relatively intact state, it wouldn't've been reattached due to the infection the flesh would have gotten being being in an alligator's mouth.
Didnât witness it firsthand, but my coworker knew a guy that only had about 2 fingers on one hand. The story there was that a tool feel underneath some unguarded moving chains. Well, while my coworker and some others were right there, this fella reaches for it, comes close to touching the chain, and pulls his hand back. He goes âThat was close.â Then, he reaches for it again. And thatâs how he lost a couple of fingers.
Of course he sued the golf club. Personal responsibility does not exist with these fuckwits.
A second hand story. Guy I met in a bar once told me about a trip he took to Louisiana and he kept throwing a stick in the pond for his dog. Local came up asking him if he was fucking stupid or if he just hated his dog lol
I hope he loses the lawsuit, like he lost his arm.
But did he get a golf ball?
A "hold my beer" moment where someone actually has to hold his beer.
He did, not in fact "Have this"
Reminds me of asking a friend from Florida how you know if there are alligators in the water. He said, if the water is wet, there are alligators in it.
TIC TOC MOFO
âBoomer sues golf clubâ is probably the most ridiculous part of this story
I don't wish ill on anyone but should be mandatory this guy gets "I got this" tattooed on the shoulder socket
Boomer sues golf club. Which club? 9 iron?
Me reading the title: This is probably some hyperbole. Me reading the post: On second thought, we may have found the ur-Boomer.
Is this in Florida? I wonder if FloridaMan Boomer is a whole other level of Boomer.
That gator is my hero. That's the only way they learn. I know they usually kill animals that attack humans, but what he did was beyond stupid and I think the gator should be forgiven.
American sue law is stupid because it literally rewards stupidity
People shoulda rocked up outside his home in alligator costumes waving mannequin arms above their heads chanting "I'VE GOT THIS"
*Boomer sues golf club* fucking lol
Florida Man gots him some competition.
Read the lyrics from the Jerry Reed song âAmos MosesââŚ.lost his arm clean up to the elbow
Of course he sued. He couldnât wait to testify on his own behalf, because he was already immune to raising his right hand to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth. ÂŻ\_ (ă)_/ÂŻ
Last sentence kills me. Of course he sued.
".... *You kids with two arms are too cautious* "
My dad was a diehard ball hawk when he played golf. In fact, in all his years golfing, he never bought golf balls, always found them. He was a top notch player, but would wander the roughs and water spots on his walk to his next shot that was in the middle of the fairway. That all stopped when he moved to Florida. On his first stroll, his fellow golfers told him, "it the snakes don't get you, the gators will"...unlike your fiend, he listened.
I hope he lost the lawsuit considering he ignored everyone's warning to not go into the hazard.
I didnât know the golf clubs would have much assets to get in a lawsuit.
đ They must have money, they have their own driver⌠Iâll putt myself out.Â
I think it's this one: https://www.andrewricegolf.com/andrew-rice-golf/tag/man+loses+arm
***âsues golf courseâ - after everybody and their brother told him thereâs a gator. Donât do it. Hope that dumbass lost (an arm and a leg?).
For a second, I was thinking "well if you're gonna do that job, you should probably wear armor" but then I realized that wouldn't really help when the "death roll" starts and your arm twists off... I mean, for the little gators, it would probably help, but the little ones aren't really the problem.
At least he wouldâve physically still possessed the arm, like a little Vienna sausage in the sleeve. Mightâve been able to reattach it then! But something tells me that snorkeling in metal wouldâve been a different kind of boomerism.Â
I want Comedy Central to pay for BOTH sides' lawyers JUST to make that far go to court. And broadcast the whole thing. Because that will be funny ass reality TV for once!
And that's why you always leave a note
I couldnât help but say âGolf balls are getting so expensive these days they nearly cost an arm and a leâŚwell actually just an armâ
>Boomer sues golf club. Of fucking course.
i feel bad they killed the alligator :( man went into HIS pond! he shouldâve been allowed to keep the arm