Welcome to Scary Animal Attacks!
Today’s episode brings us to the swamplands of Southern Lousiana.
These swamps are covered with cypress trees and muddy terrain interrupted by stagnant
water.
The animals of the area include snapping turtles, cotton mouth & copperhead snakes, as well
as various types of birds, fish and mammals.
But the subject animal of our episode today is alligators.
Hurricane Ida had been building in the Gulf of Mexico since August 23, 2021, before making
landfall.
It had peaked at a category 4 hurricane which is characterized by sustained 150 mile per
hour winds.
On August 29th it had reached the southern aspect of Louisiana and began to destroy anything
in its path.
The storm surge of the hurricane flooded thousands of residences and created environmental and
humanitarian disasters across the affected area.
Tim Satterlee was a pillar of his community, volunteering as a cook during disasters as
well as helping youth sports programs.
Right now, Tim is sheltered with his wife, Sandy, in their east Slidell home on Avery
Drive in Avery Estates, just outside of Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, Louisiana.
Their home backs up to Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, 18,000 of wild swamps and
wetlands and home to hundreds of species of wildlife.
The storm had blown over and their home, built above flood level on stilts, had survived.
The storm surge was still high in Avery Estates because of its low elevation, but Tim decided
to go outside and check on their shed and make sure it was ok.
Sandy heard a splashing sound and was concerned that Tim had fallen into the storm surge.
She ran outside to check on her husband.
You see, there was a marsh behind the Satterlees home and the water had been rising quickly
from the excess water from the storm.
Terrain had changed dramatically, given that water had moved fallen trees as well as flooded
land.
Sandy witnessed her husband in a death roll with a 12 foot long, 500 pound alligator.
The gator rolled and rolled, tearing Tims arm from his body.
Sandy ran to the side of her husband and began pulling him up on the steps of the house,
she then realized the gator left with his arm.
He was unresponsive and she realized she had to get him help.
She had no power or cell service to call for help, so she waded through the water, having
no idea where the gator was, and got into the pirogue.
Sandy then paddled to their neighbors house.
Once she arrived, she called the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, and beat the first
responders to her house.
When they all arrived at the house, they realized Tim’s body was now gone.
A large blood stain remained.
The gator had apparently returned to reclaim his body as food, just after Sandy had chased
him away.
Wildlife authorities immediately began an investigation to try to locate Tim’s body
and the gator.
They had to make sure that Tim was actually dead before labeling the incident a death,
and they had to make sure the animal that ate him would never again have a chance to
kill and eat another human.
They set traps in the area and waited.
It can take a long time for a gator to find the bait of a trap and then there is the chance
the animal will get away even after that.
There was nothing sure about apprehending the gator that ate Tim.
After just about two weeks, the authorities were surveying the wildlife refuge by drone,
to index gators they thought may have been the one involved in the attack.
Then they located a giant.
He was over 500 pounds in weight and over 12 feet long.
They proceeded to sneak up on the gator and see if they could get a good shot on the animal
and perform an examination.
They got very lucky in that they managed to pull off finding and then killing the gator
with a single headshot.
Keep in mind, a gator's brain is the size of an almond.
That is a very difficult part of alligator anatomy to hit.
They pulled the giant man killer onto their boat to take it back to the lab to complete
a necropsy.
They gator was placed on a lab table and gut open.
Inside of the gator, they pulled hunks of human flesh as well as elements of Tims face
still intact.
This gator was clearly the one that hunted, stalked, killed and then ate Tim Satterlee.
A DNA comparison of the body and Tim’s daughter's DNA confirmed that the dead body was Tim’s.
In the swamplands of Louisiana there are estimated to be 2 million alligators.
Tim’s predatory alligator attacks was the first recorded gator fatality in 200 years
in Louisiana.