Alligator crawls under man’s truck at Florida red light, then shakes it from beneath
A motorist sitting at a red light in Venice, Florida, watched in disbelief as a 10-foot alligator crawled across several traffic lanes, then vanished under his truck.
That’s not the strangest part. Apparently, the gator was too chubby to squeeze through easily.
“When he was probably three-quarters of the way under my box truck, I felt a little wiggle or shake from under truck,” Daniel Jay Kaufman told McClatchy News.
“By this time, the light is green and no cars were in front of me. I couldn’t move because I didn’t want to hurt him under my truck. For a second, I was thinking he might stay there.”
It happened around 5 p.m. Thursday, April 7, on Jacaranda Boulevard, while Kaufman was on his way home from work. Venice is about 75 miles south of Tampa.
The sight of a Snap-on tool van driving in reverse is what first got Kaufman’s attention. Then he noticed traffic on the other side of the road had come to a halt. Twenty or so feet away was a single, lumbering alligator — with one foot missing.
Kaufman pulled out his cell phone and began recording, clearly amused at the sight. But things quickly took a scary turn. The alligator was startled by a passing vehicle and began scrambling straight toward Kaufman’s vehicle.
“Was wondering if he was going to try and get in through my window. Didn’t know what was going though his mind,” he said. “I was in total shock at how big he was and how brave.”
Kaufman continued recording as the reptile hissed at him, then slithered under his vehicle. That’s when he felt it start shaking. “Just moved my truck. Are you kidding me?” Kaufman is heard saying in the video.
It took the reptile just seconds to wiggle free of the undercarriage. The video ends with it emerging on the other side of the truck, still two lanes from reaching the sidewalk.
“I stayed till he was fully clear of my truck and a safe distance away,” Kaufman said.
The truck’s underside was not damaged during the incident, he said.
Kaufman posted his video the same day on Facebook, where it has racked up more than 100,000 views and hundreds of reactions and comments. Some commenters guessed the risky trek through traffic had to do with gator mating season season, which may be correct. Alligator courtships start in early April, according to the state.
“Meanwhile, every Floridian is screaming at him for stopping traffic,” Vincent Ziegler posted.
“I love this. Not a care in the world,” Laura Orzano Frankow wrote on Facebook.
This story was originally published April 10, 2022 at 8:33 AM with the headline "Alligator crawls under man’s truck at Florida red light, then shakes it from beneath."