Man Applies Unusual Tactic To Stop Rampaging Alligator

When Army veteran Eugene Bozzi moved from Philadelphia to Florida, he wasn’t thinking about the number of predators that might be lurking outside his new home. You don’t see many alligators in Philly, after all! So when his young daughter told him an alligator was prowling the Bozzis’ yard, the family was understandably terrified. Yet the Florida resident acted in an instinctive and surprising way to protect them from the enormous reptile.

Unexpected message

“It was spur-of-the-moment thinking,” Bozzi later told the New York Post. Bozzi seemingly is the kind of person who jumps into action when needed — especially when those in need are his family. Right before this incident, he had just been hanging out with his nephew in his garage. And that’s when his 11-year-old daughter said something he hadn’t been anticipating.

Reptilian visitor

“Hey, this big alligator just hissed at me!” she exclaimed to her dad. Bozzi naturally thought she was exaggerating about the size of the reptile outside the house. But then he peeked outside and saw that it was bigger than Bozzi himself. The animal’s sheer scale worried the army vet — but it didn’t keep him from carrying out his plan.

Looking for a meal

“There were other people’s kids out there,” Bozzi told the Post. “Military instinct kicked in — and, you know, ‘protect at all costs.’” But the Florida man probably didn’t want to freak the kids out, either. “I said, ‘No, I’m removing it because he’s probably hungry,’” Bozzi explained to USA Today. Yet he wasn’t really sure how the animal was likely to react.

Protecting the children

“The only thing that came to my mind was to protect my kids and the other children outside,” Bozzi told USA Today. But the veteran knew he wanted to remove the alligator from his yard without harming either himself or the reptile. “I don’t know the procedures, so I did it my own way,” Bozzi said to NBC affiliate WESH.