Fatal alligator encounter spurs lawsuit against St. Lucie County business

WEST PALM BEACH − It was nearly a year ago when Bill Serge said he got the phone call all sons dread.

His 85-year-old mother, Gloria Serge, was dead.

“I was told there had been an event and law enforcement was on the scene,” Bill Serge, 62, said. “But I never could have imagined the agonizing way in which my mom spent the final moments of her life.”

He said he learned a 10-foot, 700-pound alligator had pulled his mother, a more than 20-year resident of her home near a retention pond in the Spanish Lakes Fairways community in northern St. Lucie County, into “the water where she drowned in the most violent and terrifying way possible.”

On Thursday, Bill Serge and attorneys Gary Lesser and Joshua Ferraro announced the filing of a wrongful death lawsuit against Wynne Building Corporation, doing business as Spanish Lakes Fairways, after the Feb. 20, 2023, incident.

Gloria Serge had been walking her dog, Trooper, when the alligator encounter happened.

“Spanish Lakes knew of dangerous alligators and did nothing,” Lesser said. “They could have warned their residents, they could have had the alligator removed.

“Instead, they encouraged the residents to go to the shore of the retention pond with community benches and sent them to where the alligators are. This was going to happen. It was preventable.”

According to a copy of the lawsuit provided at a news conference at the attorneys’ office in West Palm Beach, Wynne Building Corporation had a duty to keep the premises safe and warn of dangers. They held a duty “to prevent foreseeable harm.”

“There is always an obligation to act for the protection of those who you have control over, who you are charged with protecting,” Ferraro said. “They didn't act with reasonable care, they didn't act with any care.”

Ferraro said homeowners in the community own the residences, but the development owns the land.

A number of ponds are within the community, situated east of Interstate 95 and north of Indrio Road.

“Spanish Lakes is one of these communities that has a rule, you can't walk your dog in the streets of your community,” Lesser said.

He said Gloria Serge was given “an eviction warning for walking her small dog in the front yard of her house.”

That left her with taking her pooch to a dog walk area nearly a mile away, which the attorneys said wasn’t feasible, or she could walk the dog in the back yard.

Alligators are found in all of Florida’s 67 counties, and are a “fundamental part” of the state’s lakes, swamps, rivers and wetlands, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Lesser said the neighborhood named the alligator Henry because it so often was seen on the shore.

“Our investigations revealed that residents and staff fed the alligator chicken and other food from their lunch on a regular basis,” Lesser said. “The community had notice that staff and residents were feeding the alligators and did nothing to stop it.”

The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages, but Ferraro said the amount would be left up to a jury.

Gloria Serge was a mother of five, grandmother of 15 and great grandmother of nine.

Bill Serge said his father died years earlier.

“The sudden and violent nature of this attack, thinking about my mom in her final moments, resulted in a whole different level of all consuming grief,” Bill Serge said.

Joel Wynne, president of Wynne Development Corporation, said Thursday he has not seen the lawsuit.  He said the company was not informed the alligator was a nuisance alligator.

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Will Greenlee is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Will on X @OffTheBeatTweet or reach him by phone at 772-267-7926. E-mail him at will.greenlee@tcpalm.com.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Lawsuit filed after 85-year-old woman dies in alligator attack in SLC