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Once Again, Polk Deputies Get Between Man, Gators

JIM REED/Tribune file photo (2006)

State contracted trappers, from left, Scott Barbon, Dallas Haynie and John Wilson, wearing raincoat, wrestle with an alligator in November 2006.

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By BILLY TOWNSEND | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 7, 2008

LAKELAND - LAKELAND - LAKELAND - For the second time in just more than a year, Polk County sheriff's deputies have intervened to protect Adrian Apgar from an alligator, the sheriff's office reported.

  Adrian Apgar

In November 2006, a quartet of deputies waded into Lake Parker to rescue Apgar from the clutches of a large alligator that nearly killed him.

Just after midnight this morning, deputies were able to talk Apgar, 47, out of a pond at Saddle Creek park before a gator could grab him.

Other than that, the incidents, as described by the sheriff's office, sound strikingly familiar.

This is the sheriff's office account:

Deputies found an unoccupied truck parked near one of the ponds and began to investigate. They quickly learned it was Apgar's truck and began looking for him.

They found him naked, walking through the water toward an alligator about 50 feet offshore. Apgar also had been found naked in the 2006 incident. This time, deputies were able to talk Apgar safely out of the water.

He was detained under the Baker Act, which allows police to hospitalize a person whose mental condition is considered a threat to themselves or others.

Apgar told deputies he had been bitten by a snake while looking for an alligator, but it wasn't immediately clear whether that was the case.

"He told the deputies he knew he was gambling with his life. Our deputies have been placed in danger twice as a result of this man's actions," Sheriff Grady Judd said.

Apgar was transported to Lakeland Regional Medical Center.

"I applaud our deputy's actions they followed up on an abandoned truck, realized who it belonged to and found Apgar, who was placing himself in danger, again," Judd said.

The sheriff's office said Apgar could face prosecution in the case, though they did not say on what charge.

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