An alligator in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was rescued after it was found with a green soccer ball lodged in its mouth — an item that had reportedly been stuck in the gator’s jaws for days.
On Saturday, workers with a local wildlife company — The Snake Chaser, per local news station WBTW — were called to the retention pond where the gator was located.
“It almost looked like he wasn’t alive at the time,” James Sargent, one of the employees who treated the gator, told the news station. “But then I did see him moving, so I knew he was alive.”
The gator — which was larger than Sargent and his co-worker, who he identified on Facebook as Chris Boone, first anticipated — was eventually wrangled by the men.
“He was able to get me down into the water. The first time I was ever in the lake for a gator,” Sargent told the news station.
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He added: “I have to physically catch him like a fish, bring him close enough to where we can then get the snare on him. Once we get the snare on him that’s connected to a rope, so then we got a good hold on it.”
The two men were able to free the ball from the gator's mouth — doing so to the applause from several homeowners located nearby. The gator was then released back into the water.