A man died after crashing into an 11-foot alligator while driving on a Florida roadway Thursday, police said.
John Hopkins, 59, was driving about 20 miles outside of Tampa in Hillsborough County when he hit an alligator in the road at 12:30 a.m., the county sheriff’s office said, according to NBC News.
Hopkins’s car swerved off the road and flipped into a nearby ditch, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities arrived at the scene after a passing motorist saw Hopkins’s car and called 911, NBC reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the alligator was also killed upon impact.
An investigation of the incident is ongoing.