MIAMI (CBSMiami/CNN) – A Florida man has died after crashing his car into an 11-foot alligator.
The crash occurred after midnight on Thursday, according to a statement from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
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John Hopkins, 59, was driving east on County Road 672 in LIthia, about two miles west of County Road 39, when he struck an 11-foot alligator in the roadway. Lithia is about 25 miles east of Tampa.
Hopkins’ car “veered off the road” and turned into a ditch, where a passing driver noticed it and called 911, the sheriff’s office said.
Hopkins and the alligator were both deceased when detectives arrived on the scene.
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Florida and Louisiana have the nation’s largest alligator populations — with around 1.3 million wild alligators in Florida alone, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Still, a representative of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office told CNN car crashes involving alligators are “not common.”
The sheriff’s office will conduct a standard fatal crash investigation to determine what factors may have contributed to the accident.
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