Florida alligator moves through neighborhood, gets head stuck in lawn chair: Watch video

Indianapolis Star

12-05-2025

Ever seen an alligator take on a lawn chair? That's a normal day in Florida.
Local authorities, including the Lee County Sheriff's Office, were called to collect a feisty alligator seen picking a fight with an orange lawn chair on a resident's front porch on Friday, May 9. (Spoiler alert: The alligator lost more than the fight.)
Footage of the low-stakes battle was captured by the resident's doorbell camera, which shows the gator moving door-to-door in Tortuga, a residential neighborhood in Fort Myers, before it was apprehended by a state alligator trapper.
"Knock knock! Your visitor is chomping at the bit to come in!!" the sheriff's office wrote on Facebook. "Our 3rd precinct deputies responded to a call this morning of a suspicious…. Gator knocking on doors within the Tortuga community."
The trapper, with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, was able to wrangle the reptile off the porch and into a pickup truck with help from a couple of deputies.
"Thankfully, he was secured and handed over to the trapper safely," the post reads. "How's that for taking a BITE outta crime?"
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While alligator sightings are fairly common across the Sunshine State, nothing could've prepared state and local authorities in Jacksonville for what they saw go down on April 28.
Local agencies, including a local wrangler named Mike Dragich, were on a mission to get an alligator off the streets after the apex predator was spotted in the median of I-95/I-295 in Jacksonville's Southside area.
Dragich, who goes by Blue Collar Brawler on social media, was recorded attempting to coax the alligator into submission.
Dragich was seen using a pole to engage the gator, who snaps and whips its tail at him in a grassy median as cars speed by on either side.
🚨 Only in Florida… 🚨featuring Mike Dragich.
If you were cruising down I-95/I-295 on the Southside yesterday and thought you saw a barefoot man wrestling a giant alligator in the median—nope, your eyes weren't playing tricks on you. That really happened. 🐊😳
Your #JSO joined forces with Florida Fish & Wildlife, the Florida Highway Patrol and none other than local gator-wrangling legend, the Blue Collar Brawler, to wrangle this beast off the road and keep everyone safe.
Just another totally normal day in the Sunshine State. 🌞💪
He then wrangles it onto the shoulder of the highway, then sits on its back to muzzle the beast — all while shoeless, wearing camouflage shorts and a sleeveless camo shirt. Dragich and a fellow state alligator trapper lift the gator off the shoulder of the roadway and load it into the back of a pickup truck.
"Never in my wildest dreams," an off-camera voice says, as the gator wrangler laughs.
'If you were cruising down I-95/I-295 on the Southside yesterday and thought you saw a barefoot man wrestling a giant alligator in the median — nope, your eyes weren't playing tricks on you. That happened,' the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post.
Alligator mating season typically occurs in May or June, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.