A female deputy saved homeowners – and an alligator that invaded their yard, by masterfully using a broom to guide it back to a pond. Deputy Wheaton and two others with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida responded to a call about a gator underneath a car on Thursday.
The four-foot alligator wandered out of a pond and was sleeping under a car in a neighborhood in Tampa. The sheriff’s office shared a nearly minute-long video of Wheaton wrangling the reptile that was crawling around a grassy area outside a home.
Wheaton did the trick using a broom. She held on to the brush side and got the alligator to bite on to the other side of the stick. She then dragged it across the lawn and flung it toward the pond, then prodded it go back to its natural habitat.
‘Deputy Wheaton saved another gator!!!’ the sheriff’s department wrote in a tweet sharing the video of the episode on Sunday. ‘Fortunately, she was able to relocate the gator back to its pond, when it grabbed onto the broom and hitched a ride!’
She could be heard joking at the end of the video that the gnawed up broom would have to be replaced.
Wheaton is apparently well experienced in dealing with gators. Just last month, she relocated a 10-foot gator, according to WFLA.
It is currently alligator mating season in Florida, so the sheriff’s office has advised residents to only swim in designated areas and during the daytime, to keep pets on leashes and to maintain a safe distance.
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