Leesburg police and local driver rescue alligator stuck on a US 441 median
LEESBURG — Police were called to help a youngster cross busy U.S. Highway 441 Saturday evening at about 6:30 p.m. He was on the median, halted by busy traffic.
No big deal, except this was a 4-foot alligator.
What to do? How to do it?
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'We just don't want him to be killed'
He looked docile, at first; taking his time to even lay his snout over the edge of the concrete barrier, as he attempted to go north from his old neighborhood near the swampy areas around Leesburg International Airport.
“We just don’t want him to be killed,” said Officer Joseph Heuser.
He asked fellow officer Dominic Paonessa if he had a pole and leash device like the ones that animal control officers use to capture snarling dogs.
“No,” he said, but he had a long pry bar, and plenty of leashes.
He rigged up an impromptu lasso on the end of the steel tool, but it was still pretty short, and the gator was getting short-tempered.
Soon, they were joined by another officer, William Coffey-Shade, and a tow truck driver, who was apparently used to seeing crazy things on the road.
A wildlife trapper had been called, but suddenly a pickup truck pulled up and the driver asked the obvious question of the day: “Do you want me to get him?”
Rob Dixon was not a licensed trapper, he confessed, but said he had been around a lot of alligators.
A heroic catch
Improvisation became the game of the day, with an a newly arrived officer throwing his jacket over the gator in hopes of grabbing him somehow.
Dixon threw a piece of plywood over him, and the officer who was suddenly without a jacket tried to get the gator to latch onto a Plexiglas assault shield.
They were successful in one respect: They had the gator’s attention. In fact, he was getting snappier by the minute. He went under one of the police cars and officers were forced to direct curious motorists away from the from the rescue effort.
Dixon bravely got down on his belly to try to reason with the youngster, or so it seemed.
Finally, police were able to get the alligator to stick his head in the noose. Dixon grabbed the tail, and the reptile was soon headed back to his side of the highway off Sleepy Hollow Road in the back of Dixon’s truck.
The last time anyone saw the reluctant reptile was Dixon dragging him backward toward a gated retention pond at the Lake Harris Conservation Area.
“You don’t want to get bit,” Dixon said. “They carry all kinds of diseases in their mouths."
The officers were grateful. It was a nice change from dealing with Saturday night drunken drivers, they said. It was not apparent, however, that the gator was grateful at all.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Florida police, local man help alligator cross US 441 in Leesburg
