The moment a ferocious alligator swam silently close to a 12-year-old wakesurfer in Texas has been captured for posterity.
TikTok’s not just a fantastic place for narcissists; it’s also a great platform to show off personal encounters with animals that kill, or in this particular case, reptiles.
The most recent viral TikTok video capturing that exquisite moment when the natural world dares encroach upon ours has already clocked up over half a million views, proving that you never know what’s waiting in the water.
@malibuwakeclm288 Nothing like Wakesurfing in your river and you see a gator swimming. Time to go!!!!#wakesurfing #gator #alligator #coloradoriver #seeya @Follow Brand #texas
The Independent reports that last weekend, competitive wake surfer Clair Hurta was having a chill before her next practice run on the Colorado River in the Bay Texas area when the 12-year-old came face to face with something primitive and prehistoric.
And no! It wasn’t Donald Trump! It was an alligator that had surfaced a few feet behind her and was grinning in that big reptilian way that alligators, crocodiles, and Republicans sometimes do.
Thankfully, Clair’s mother, Crystal, was on hand to film the encounter, and credit where credit’s due, for a 12-year-old, Clair certainly kept her cool when coming face to face with an apex predator.
There were no hysterics, no thrashing around in the water, just an ice-cold glance in the alligator’s direction, before she simply smiled at the camera like it was just another day on the water in good old Texas.
Mom Crystal grew up on this patch of water and is more than familiar with the fang-toothed fiends.
She described the gator as “pretty big” and explained, “Clair looked at it and just shrugged it off—she wasn’t worried. Now, a snake would make her walk on water.”
Once the filming was wrapped and the promise of going viral on TikTok was pretty much in the bag, mother and child fled the area to tell Texas game wardens there were some nuisance gators in the area.
Crystal said, “We know they are there, but seeing them isn’t something I like. She was surfing, and once she fell and I went back to pick her up, I noticed the gator swimming across and was able to capture that moment. It was far enough away that where I wasn’t worried, nor was Clair.”
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department explained that alligators are common in that part of Texas and typically pose little threat unless they feel threatened or extremely hungry. Yet if they begin to hang around boats or show little fear of humans, it means they could quickly become a nuisance.
Fellow TikTok users were inspired by the ice-cool demeanour of the 12-year-old during her encounter with the alligator.
One enthused, “You guys are bred differently! I would have lost my sheet (sic).”
Another chirped in with, “Damn, you guys are truly built different. Don’t think I could do that.”
A local who was in the safety of the boat when the alligator rose from the depths like a sinister serpent, exclaimed, “That gator actually scared me, and I was in the boat. How Clair wasn’t like screaming!”
