A South Carolina woman died on Tuesday after she was attacked by an alligator while walking her dog near a golf course, authorities said. The 69-year-old woman, who has not been named, was found dead in the Spanish Wells community of Hilton Head Island, the Beaufort county sheriff’s office said in a news release. The woman was found at the edge of a lagoon bordering a golf course. An alligator appeared to be guarding the woman, interrupting emergency rescue efforts, the sheriff’s office said. The alligator was eventually safely removed and the woman’s body was recovered. An autopsy is pending. This was the second fatal alligator attack in Beaufort county in the past year, sheriff’s officials said. An 88-year-old Sun City woman was attacked by an alligator at a lagoon near her home in August 2022. In Florida in February, an 85-year-old woman, also walking her dog, was killed when an alligator pulled her into a pond by her foot, in Fort Pierce.