Gator Brings Traffic to a Halt

An alligator out for a Sunday evening walk in the Fort Myers area brought traffic to a standstill along U.S. 41 when it found itself in the precarious position of being trapped underneath a woman’s car.

The scene unfolded near the intersection of U.S. 41 and Gladiolus Drive around 7 p.m. Motorist Alana Goodwin watched as the gator walked out in front of her car, heading for the traffic lane. She moved up further to protect the beast from oncoming cars and watched as people kept passing, she told the Naples Daily News.

That’s when the situation got a little sticky.

“We were driving south on 41 when we saw this big gator in the road,” motorist Katie Dusanowitz told the paper. “We saw a car stop to protect the alligator and then he crawled under her car.”

Rather than allow the situation to phase her, Goodwin waited patiently for trappers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to arrive on the scene to remove the gator from the road, WINK reported. As she did, plenty of passersby stopped to snap photos. Lee County even had to send out sheriff’s deputies to keep traffic moving, the station noted.

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As for Goodwin, she wasn’t in the least bit flapped by the encounter. As a native Floridian, she told the Naples Daily News, she knows the experience was “regular happenstance.”

It is currently unknown where FWC took the 8-foot-1-inch gator after removing it from U.S. 41.

The warmer months are primetime for encounters with Florida’s cold-blooded residents. Alligator movement is quite common this time of year and so are calls to FWC about nuisance gators. In April, an alligator created a brouhaha while out on the stroll near a Brevard County McDonald’s and another gator has earned Internet fame for his regular appearances on an Englewood golf course.

To help residents safely navigate encounters with alligators, the state has set up its own hotline to accept nuisance alligator calls. That number is 1-866-FWC-GATOR (866-392-4286). In 2013 alone, the state fielded 15,036 nuisance alligator calls, which resulted in the removal of 6,605 creatures.

Since that “regular happenstance” does happen to occur quite regularly, the state has also published a downloadable brochure with the ABCs of cohabitating with these reptiles. “ A Guide to Living with Alligators” can be accessed from the state’s website.

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