Florida man jumps into crocodile pit at alligator farm

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (FOX 13) - A Florida man was injured after jumping into a crocodile pit at an alligator park in St. Augustine. 

Surveillance video obtained by Action News Jacksonville shows the man standing on the walkway and then leaping over the rail and into the water at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. 

The park director, John Bruggen, said it appeared the man broke into the park after hours, then jumped into the water. 

As the park was getting ready to open Tuesday morning, workers found several lamps and signs broken, along with a toppled statue in the middle of the crocodile pit that could only be reached by swimming.

Workers also found a pair of shorts and a rubber "Crocs" shoe floating in the pool and thought it was a prank, Bruggen said. "We start thinking well, you know, it looks like somebody wants us to think a crocodile ate somebody, but there's not a body. Even three 12 foot crocodiles couldn't consume a whole human body overnight," he told Action News Jacksonville. 

An officer responding to the park said a man was found in a nearby neighborhood in only his boxers with blood on him and told police he was bitten by an alligator. The man appeared to have several bites on his foot, but denied being at the alligator farm. 

He was taken to the hospital for treatment, police say. 

"I would think he's on some sort of drugs," Bruggen said. "I'm concerned about an individual who literally climbs up a wall that's meant to keep you from crocodiles and leaps over the wall into the water with them."