Police snipers and officers were ready to shoot alligators as dive teams searched a submerged minivan, according to WSVN.
On Friday (May 27), a blue Toyota minivan lost control while trying to exit the Turnpike in West Miami-Dade County, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The vehicle ended up in an alligator-infested retention pond off the road.
“The vehicle lost control, overturned, driving off of the roadway into the pond,” FHP Lt. Alex Camacho. “Dive teams from fire rescue and Miami-Dade Police did their search and rescue, and were able to rescue an adult female and adult male inside of the vehicle at the time.”
Reporters say police snipers were on hand to shoot any gators in case they attack the first responders along with officers armed with rifles along the pond. Divers pulled an elderly woman and a man from the vehicle, who were both taken to the hospital in critical condition, officials say.
They were later identified as 80-year-old Nieves Matos and 56-year-old Mario Laza, per WSVN. Laza, who was a Miami Springs gas station employee, was the only fatality so far in the incident.
"I miss his smile, everything, how he talked, everything," Yusle Disperez, a friend of Laza, told reporters through a translator. "To me, we lost the light of this gas station."
The news station also learned Good Samaritans jumped into the murky waters to assist the elderly woman following the crash. The minivan was later removed from the retention pond, and an investigation is underway.
WSVN also livestreamed the search and rescue operation: