Wild Nature

LARGO, Fla. – A Florida man says a large alligator lunged out of the water and charged at him while visiting the same park where a man recently died in the lake inhabited by gators.

Foster Thorbjornsen told FOX 35 News he was walking at John S. Taylor Park in Largo this week and noticed an 8 to 10-foot alligator in the lake about 20-feet from shore. 

“He was the biggest alligator I have seen in the wild,” Thorbjornsen wrote on Facebook. 

He stopped to take some close-up photos of the gator using his zoom lens, but when he looked away to check his camera, Thorbjornsen says the alligator “quickly swam to shore and charged at me,” stopping when the gator was almost completely out of the water about 10-feet away. 

“The timing of his charge was deliberate. He waited for me to turn and look away. It was nerve wracking and intense,” Thorbjornsen continued on Facebook. “But, Florida being a stand your ground state (lol), I took only a step or two back before quickly taking more shaky videos and pictures.”

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Thorbjornsen said he wasn’t too worried about himself since there was a steep embankment and a tree between him and the gator, but then remembered that a man was recently found dead in a lake with alligators while looking for golf discs. 

“This is a park frequented by families with small children who often go to the water’s edge. Definitely not the ideal place for a large, aggressive, territorial bull gator.”

Sean McGuinness, 47, was found May 31 in the lake in Taylor…