It Turns Out the Florida Man Found Dead in an Alligator's Mouth Died from a Meth Overdose
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Source - A man who was found partially eaten by an alligator in Polk County died due to a methamphetamine overdose and not from an alligator attack, according to autopsy results released Wednesday.
On June 27 this year, 10News reported that a company employee at the Mosaic Co. in Ft. Meade came across an 11-foot alligator in a pond on the property that had a deceased man in its mouth, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
The body was identified as 45-year-old Michael Ford II, who was not an employee of Mosaic, deputies said. At the time, it was unclear whether the cause of death was an alligator attack or something else.
On Wednesday, the Medical Examiner's Office for Polk, Hardee and Highlands Counties released its findings. It cited “methamphetamine intoxication” as the cause of death and said the alligator attack looks to have happened after Ford had already died. It is still unclear why Ford was on the property.
RIP to Michael Ford II, who was one of God's children the same as you and me and died altogether too young. But if you're marked to die, I suppose there's some comfort in meeting your demise doing what you love to do, which is getting high on meth. As opposed to being violently ripped to shreds by a carnivorous, perfectly evolved, prehistoric murder torpedo. To steal a line from a Boston comic I worked with a million years ago (that in no way am I passing off as my own material) which seems appropriate at a moment like this, "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. And not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car." So very, very true.
And I hope that wherever he is in his afterlife, Michael can take some solace in knowing that in death, he represented his home state as well as anybody ever has. Dying of a meth overdose and then being eaten by an alligator is just so Florida, an overdose victim in a gator's mouth should be on the Welcome signs as you cross the border from Georgia. Or on the travel posters as you get off the plane and walk into the terminal at all the airports. You know how at beauty pageants they always put the contestants in come cliched, "It's a Small World"-style stereotype costumes? Like a German beer hall waitress or an Italian gondola driver or a Nebraska farm girl or whatever? The next Miss Florida should dress like a meth head being eaten by an 11-foot alligator. That's how you represent your people and culture to the world.
So again, my condolences to Mr. Ford and all his loved ones. Please take solace in the old expression, "Every man dies. Not every man truly gets to live by wandering into an area filled with vicious reptiles while high as a rat on methamphetamines. Goodnight, sweet prince.