Tourists gathered on a platform for watching turtles and other creatures at the Laguna del Carpintero in the northeastern Mexico state of Tamaulipas were recently shocked when a giant crocodile swam across, dragging along a lifeless man’s body in its jaws.
The crocodile had earlier attacked and killed the man after he ignored warnings not to go swimming in the lagoon due to the presence of reptiles.
The visitors were catching fun watching turtles swim on Thursday, 18 August when they were greeted by the horrific sight.
The deceased was clamped in the crocodile’s jaws as it swam near an observation platform used for watching underwater creatures at the park.
Terrified visitors called the police who found that the crocodile had taken the body into a sewer.
Local firefighters joined police efforts and were able to discover the animal and the man beneath a manhole a block away from the park in the Tampico neighbourhood of Volantín, according to the Mexican newspaper Proceso.
The first responders worked for an hour before they were able to remove the metal sewage cover to access the crocodile.
They were able to tie a rope around the crocodile’s mouth and pulled him out. They later proceeded to remove the man’s body from the drainage system.
The police said the body was of a man believed to be in his 20s.
The lagoon is renowned for its crocodile attacks, with a number of people falling victim to the predators.
Local policemen said the man ignored warning signs posted around the park advising people not go into the water to swim.
The incident took place two weeks after a fisherman, Fernando Martínez fought a crocodile for nearly 25 minutes after the reptile bit his eight-year-old daughter María Martínez and tried to pull her under a lagoon in the Tamaulipas town of Altamira.
Fernando Martínez was fishing and María Martínez was standing over the edge of the lake when the reptile attacked her in the afternoon of August 3, 2022.
‘I was fighting with the crocodile for about 25 minutes, several times he pulled my daughter to submerge her,’ he recalled in an interview with digital news outlet Tamaulipas Express. ‘I tried to open his snout so that he would release her, he bit her back and one arm, at one point the animal needed to breathe well and it was like that he let her go, I took the opportunity to take get her off.’
Watch the graphic video here.
