Just another day in Florida? A barefoot man was captured on video wrestling a giant alligator on Interstate 95 near Jacksonville.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office teamed up with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Highway Patrol, and a local alligator wrangler after the gator was spotted recently in the median of I-95/I-295 in Jacksonvilles Southside area.
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 werent playing tricks on you. That happened, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office wrote in a Facebook post.
In the video, the man can be 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. He 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.
Eventually, the man and a responder 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.
The man who helped authorities wrangle the massive gator on I-95 is Mike Dragich, better known as the Blue Collar Brawler on social media, according to news4jax.com. With more than 364,000 followers on Instagram, Dragich has built a following by posting videos of himself hunting and wrestling alligators across Florida.
Dragich, who's also an mixed martial arts fighter and a Marine veteran, seems to enjoy barefoot brawling inside and outside the octagon: According to Outkick.com, he wrestled another gator on Easter Sunday. In an April 20, post, Dragich's Instagram shows video of him coaxing an angry alligator into a large trash can, quickly closing the lid as the animal snaps its massive jaws, and then wheeling the creature away.
"Taking the trash out in Florida," the caption reads. He explains that a resident letting her dog out noticed a long tail on the patio. He "improvised using a trash can" to remove the gator.
"Thankfully, no animals or people were injured!" he wrote, cautioning, "Pay attention to your surroundings!" What to do if you encounter an alligator
Alligators are common in Florida, as well as in southern Texas, Louisiana, and parts of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, according to Defenders of Wildlife. They can move quickly in water, and while they're generally slower on land, they're can still be quick and dangerous to humans and other animals.
Attacks on humans, though, are rare: "With how many people there are and how many alligators there are, it's really surprising it doesn't happen more often," Frank Mazzotti, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida, told USA TODAY in 2022.
Alligators breed and seek out new habitats in spring and summer, but they have a natural fear of humans and will usually retreat when approached, seeing humans as neither threat nor food, Mazzotti said. They only attack when threatened or cornered, especially on land. So experts advise avoiding waterways where alligators might be present.
Maintaining a distance of at least 30 feet from an alligator is best, as they can run fast in short spurts. If an alligator chases you, experts from the University of Florida say to run in a straight line. In the event of an attack, poke at its eyes, and punch and kick around its face and head. The gator's gag reflex can be induced by jamming objects in the back of its mouth, so when it tries to reposition prey, that affords an opportunity to escape.
"If you should be attacked, fight like your life depends on it because it does," Mazzoti said.