NAPLES, Fla. (WBBH) – An alligator was hit and killed while trying to cross U.S. 41 in Collier County on Sunday.
Alligators being hit isn’t anything new in Florida. However, the journey the gator took before it was pried from the vehicle is quite different.
The seven-foot gator was stuck under the silver Chevy Trax SUX, impaled and shredded up. The wreck was so bad, that crews couldn’t even untangle the gator from the underside of the car.
At first, ten-year tow truck veteran Joshua Schroeder didn’t even know what he was up against.
“Went to back up to the vehicle, looked down out my back window and I was like ‘There’s something under that car,’” said Schroeder, who works for United States Towing and Recovery of Naples.
Only when he hopped out of the truck did he find the gator. It was already dead at this point.
“The car impaled it. Went right through the body,” Schroeder said.
The guy driving the SUV didn’t return our calls. Schroeder said that man didn’t even know he hit an alligator.
“He’s like, ‘I was driving. And he’s like ‘I felt something in the road and I slowed down and stopped cause I heard something dragging and there it was.’”
So you’re on the side of the road, at 2 a.m., with a gator you can’t get out from under the car. What do you do?
Well, Schroeder gave his boss an early wake-up call.
“He said ‘Pick it up and let’s move it.’ So we picked up the gator and went,” he said.
They set off, car and gator in tow, and over the next day, they drove from the crash on U.S. 41 to the tow yard. From there to the dealership and from the dealership and to the body shop. Well, no one wanted to take the car with the gator still attached, so they went back to the tow yard to get it off.
The gator traveled for 31 miles, hanging from the front of the car.
“There was a lot of people taking pictures. It’s not something you see every day,” Schroeder said.
“You wouldn’t see it nowhere else,” added Romero.
“This is brand new to me, and I’m born and raised here,” said Manager of United States Towing and Recovery, Emely Sastre.
Once Schroeder managed to get the gator off, they called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.
“They said it’s the circle of life,” Schroeder said. “Get it out however you can, drop it in a canal, pond, something so the next group of animals can eat it and live on.”
All of this for what was supposed to be a routine run to pick up a broken-down car.
“It was something different, something to talk about,” said Sastre.
“I’ve had some pretty crazy calls, but I have to say, this is definitely one of the strangest,” added Schroeder.
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