“I guess I won’t do this again,” last words by woman killed by alligator.

Post and Courier (May 5): Woman killed by gator on Kiawah Island was ‘fascinated,’ took pictures before attack.

Cynthia Covert was waist deep in a pond behind her friend’s home on Kiawah Island clutching a rope as her friends tried to get her away from the alligator that dragged her into the water.

As her friends pulled, she calmly said, “I guess I won’t do this again,” according to a supplemental report released Tuesday by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.

Moments later, the alligator rolled. Covert, 58, went under.

The supplemental report provides further details on South Carolina’s third deadly alligator attack in four years.

Covert, a Johns Island resident, was on Kiawah doing her friend’s nails, the report said. The friend told investigators that Covert was “very talkative and acting strange.”
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[she] was taking pictures of the alligator.”

The friend was cleaning her porch when she saw Covert by the water, the report said. She started yelling for Covert to get back, but her cries were ignored. She yelled out that the alligator grabbed a deer from that spot “the other day.”

Covert replied, “I don’t look like a deer.”

Then she moved to touch the alligator, the report said.
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Deputies and firefighters arrived at the scene on Salt Cedar Lane and saw no movement, the report said. After about 10 or 15 minutes, Covert’s body surfaced but the alligator still had hold of her leg and took her body back under.

The alligator and Covert’s body surfaced a few moments later and a deputy shot the reptile in the head with his 9 mm handgun, causing it to release Covert, the report said.

Crews retrieved her body, which was intact and had severe wounds on the left leg, the report said. The alligator was shot several more times until it died and was brought to shore.

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