An elderly fisherman who was killed by an alligator last week tried to run away from it, but slipped and fell moments before it latched onto his leg, a friend has revealed. 

Florida native Steven Hamilton, 71, was mauled by the 12-foot predator beside a popular lake close to Orlando in front of horrified witnesses on Friday evening. 

His acquaintance, Jason Handley, told the Daily Mail on Tuesday that the gator went after Hamilton most likely because he had just caught its dinner – a large bass. 

Hamilton was posing for a photograph with the fish beside Lake Apopka in Dr Bradford Memorial Park when he heard the huge reptile emerging from the water.

‘He heard the gator come out of the water and started to run away,’ Handley said, adding that Hamilton was about five feet away from the lake at this point.  

‘He slipped and fell, and the gator grabbed him and dragged him into the water. It just snatched him in there’. 

A medical examiner previously told the Daily Mail that the apex predator grabbed Hamilton by his left leg. He died from a wound to the limb combined with drowning.  

Handley, a 37-year-old local landscaper who knew Hamilton as a frequent fisherman at the lake, said several people tried to help by throwing traffic cones at the gator. 

Steven Hamilton, 71, of Winter Gardens, Florida, has been killed by an alligator while posing with his catch on the banks of Apopka Lake in Dr Bradford Memorial Park, close to Orlando

The gator responsible for Hamilton’s death is shown above after it was captured by officials

Handley said Lake Apopka is ‘infested’ with gators, with some measuring up to 15 feet long

He added that witnesses kept a safe distance because the lake is ‘infested’ with dozens of alligators, including several measuring up to 15 feet in length. 

Hamilton’s fishing rod, retrieved by Handley, is shown above beside a memorial for him

Handley said he had his own encounter with an alligator at the same public park just a few days before Hamilton was fatally attacked.  

‘It was right by my foot, but I bonked it on the head with a fishing net,’ he said. ‘I told my girlfriend, somebody is going to get ate by one of these gators.’ 

Handley also returned to the lake on Monday evening to retrieve Hamilton’s fishing rod, which he said ‘went into the water with him’ when he was attacked. 

The landscaper recalled going down to the shoreline ‘with a buddy who has a concealed carry license’ in case they needed to shoot any other aggressive alligators. 

They managed to extract the fishing pole, and returned it to Hamilton’s heartbroken wife, Susan. 

Handley remembered Hamilton as a friendly and ‘very happy guy’. 

‘He always had positive things to say,’ he said. ‘He was always fishing there, and he would show me the fish he had caught.’ 

Video shows a dozen trappers wrangling the alligator that killed Hamilton from the water. Officials dragged the animal by its mouth from the lake before shooting it dead

Florida officials said the alligator was decapitated and its head taken as evidence

Hamilton was a seasoned fisherman from Winter Gardens and a veteran musician on the Orlando circuit. He is pictured center right with his bandmates from Bone Bros Band 

Hamilton’s death was ruled as an ‘accident’, with the cause being both ‘blunt force injury of left leg and drowning’, according to the medical examiner. 

Emergency responders said recovering his body from the water was a lengthy process because several gators were circling in the lake after he died. 

Video of the aftermath shows a dozen trappers wrangling the alligator that killed him from the water. 

Officials dragged the animal by its mouth from the banks of the lake across the grass bank nearby before shooting it dead.

Florida Fish and Wildlife officials said the alligator was decapitated and its head taken as evidence.

The victim lived just steps away from where he died, on a road backing onto the park in Winter Garden. 

Hamilton was known as a frequent fisherman in the park, as well as a talented musician with four decades of experience playing with bands in Orlando. 

His death comes less than four months after 31-year-old Brittany Clark was killed by a 12-foot alligator in another nature spot just outside of Orlando. 

It comes less than four months after 31-year-old Brittany Clark (pictured) was killed by a 12-foot alligator in another nature spot just outside of Orlando

Clark had been enjoying a hike in the picturesque Little Big Econ State Forest with her boyfriend and friend when they took a dip in a river in June. 

Chilling 911 audio from the scene previously revealed how an alligator stealthily approached the trio before viciously attacking Clark by tearing off both of her arms.

A medical examiner’s report obtained by the Daily Mail also gave more details about Clark’s final moments, including how her boyfriend heroically fought the gator even as it dragged them both underwater into a ‘death roll’.  

A ‘death roll’ is a technique alligators use to subdue prey by violently twisting onto their backs before attempting to pull the victim underwater to drown them.  

The report describes how Chance Allison risked his life and eventually managed to pry his girlfriend from the gator’s jaws – but it was too late to save her. 

Alligator attacks on humans are rare in the US, according to the Florida Wildlife Commission, but alligators are more territorial during mating season, which lasts from April until the end of June.