iStockphoto / Alex Pankratov
Audio By Carbonatix
Florida’s I-4 has a reputation as having some of the worst and most erratic drivers found anywhere in the state with people regularly flying past the speed limit by 40-50 MPH and as a native Floridian I can say that there is never a dull trip on I-4 whether it be traffic congestion, wildlife, speed traps, or something else. But never in my days have I seen anything like this: a Florida motorcyclist hit an alligator on I-4.
In fact, there were two motorcyclists that hit the alligator because they were traveling in a large group and by the time they spotted the alligator in the road it was too late to pivot, they were moving too fast to change course, and had to accept their fate of smashing into an alligator.
The incident was captured through a helmet camera being worn by one of the group’s riders. Afterward, the rider who smacked his head spoke with local news about the incident:
Speaking with Tampa Bay’s WFLA NBC News affiliate, Cameron Gilmore who was one of the Florida motorcyclists that hit the alligator on I-4, said “I saw it, like, 10 feet in front of me, and I just, you know, I thought — I knew I was going to hit it. It kind of just happened so quick. I didn’t even have a second to do anything. Couldn’t put on the brakes or not. And I just had to hold on.”
Gilmore added “I flipped over the handlebars and landed on my head on I-4 and rolled. Somebody said two or three rolls on, you know, head-first, and then I start flying for a long way.”
For starters, this is PEAK gator land in Florida. Alligators can be found in just about every body of freshwater here in Florida but the I-4 corridor is home to some massive lakes and nature preserves that hundreds of thousands of big alligators call home. So I’m not surprised that it would happen in this general region but on I-4?!
I-4 in Osceola County alone has 140,000+ daily travelers. It is an extremely busy highway. An incident like this seems likely to happen in a more remote region of Florida with less road traffic. Alas, this gator picked the wrong day to cross a highway.
Gilmore would later say that his leg went numb after he flipped over his handlebars and hit his head. Then, after he hit the alligator first, a 25-year-old woman riding a motorcycle struck it too. Both of them were taken to the HCA Lake Monroe Hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries according to WFLA.
Even though he sustained multiple bone breaks and fractures, Gilmore plans on getting back on his motorcycle as soon as he is healed up… Only in Florida, right?
This reminds me of when I moved to NYC after college and left my car with my dad. The first week I was gone he totaled my car while driving to work when he hit an alligator out of nowhere and demolished both my Ford Mustang and the gator that picked the wrong road to cross that night.