A Bluffton dad thanks God after he survived saving a neighbor from an alligator attack

Brian McCarter didn’t think about the alligators as he swam to the middle of a pond on Callawassie Island.

The 44 year old focused on what he could see — a neighbor in obvious distress.

Moments before, on July 3, McCarter was driving his golf cart around the gated community visiting neighbors with his 17-year-old son.

That’s when they spotted the woman in the water.

McCarter dove in and his son, Will, called 9-1-1 from the shore.

About 20 to 25 yards out in the water, woman’s head bobbed just above the surface.

He knew her, but not well. They had met briefly for the first time a couple weeks before.

He wasn’t sure what was wrong, but knew he had to help.

Seconds before reaching his neighbor, her head sank below the surface.

The father of five children couldn’t see her but he kept swimming in the pond, a place he often fished with his family.

The two collided as the woman came to the surface gasping for air.

“I first grabbed her around her chest,” McCarter said. “I couldn’t pull her (toward the shore) — we immediately both went under.”

McCarter didn’t know it then, but something else also had a hold of the woman.

But suddenly, whatever it was let go.

The two made it back to the surface.

“In hindsight she was freed,” McCarter said.

But he still wasn’t thinking “alligator.”

He grabbed the woman beneath her arm and pushed her toward the bank as he swam behind her.

It wasn’t until they were both out of the water that he saw two alligators swimming where he had just been.

Once he saw her injuries, he was sure what had attacked her.

Beaufort County alligator attacks

The woman is one of two people who’ve survived an alligator attack in Beaufort County in 2020.

The 75-year-old victim, who suffered lacerations and several fractures to her leg, has been released from an area hospital but is still recovering at a rehabilitation facility, said David Lucas, a spokesman for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

Lucas previously said the woman was attacked by the 10-foot alligator as she trimmed plants about dusk near the edge of a pond adjacent to her home in the gated community.

The gator believed to be involved in the attack was removed and euthanized that day.

In an incident May 26, a man was fishing at a private pond in Long Cove on Hilton Head Island when a gator started swimming toward him “very aggressively”, Lucas said in an email Monday.

The gator latched onto the man’s arm after he slipped and fell while trying to move away from the edge of the water.

The man punched the gator with his freed hand until it let him go.

He suffered a puncture wound on his arm and a broken knuckle from punching the gator.

DHEC was first notified of the incident the next day. An officer met a control agent at the pond where the gator was located.

“The gator was still there and very aggressive — most likely someone had been feeding it,” Lucas said.

It was removed and euthanized.

As of Monday, the Beaufort County incidents are two of three alligator attacks recorded in South Carolina this year.

A 57-year-old Johns Island woman was killed at Kiawah Island on May 1. The woman attempted to touch the alligator before she was attacked, a Charleston County Sheriff’s Office report says.

Beaufort County has historically seen more alligator attacks than any other in South Carolina, as previously reported by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.

The only South Carolina alligator attack in 2019 happened in Beaufort County when a 68-year-old woman was attacked by a 9-foot alligator in Sun City as she walked her dog in her yard at night..

The gator, which likely came from a pond about 25 yards away, bit her on the calf and wrist.

In 2018, a 45-year-old Hilton Head woman was killed when an alligator pulled her and her dog into a lagoon in Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island.

Alligator respect

“I think I was extremely lucky we both were able to get out of there,” McCarter said recently. “Why he didn’t continue to attack? I thank God.”

McCarter, an operations manager at Savannah’s Johnson Matthey, said he has received an outpouring of support from his Callawassie Island neighbors.

“Every day I will see two to three thank you cards,” he said.

Neighbors have also brought cakes, cookies and other items to thank him.

He said the community also has been supportive of the woman who was attacked. He said many know her because she’s been active in the neighborhood for about 20 years, including volunteering to decorate the community for Christmas.

Even after the attack, McCarter believes alligators are an important part of the local ecosystem.

“Everyone shows them great respect in the neighborhood,” McCarter said.

He said this includes not feeding the animals.

“This is just a reminder of how much respect and space you have to give them,” McCarter said.