A Texas girl bravely shrugged off her close encounter with an alligator while wakeboarding in the Lone Star State.
Clair Hurta, 12, was floating in the water of the Colorado River while waiting to get back on her board when an alligator popped its head out yards away from her.
The young girl was seen laughing just moments before her mom noticed the animal languidly perusing the waters on the sunny day.
The Pure Wakesurf-sponsored surfer didn’t fret, though, as she calmly turned back around, a TikTok video showed.
‘After we saw the gator we left that area and surfed in another area of the river,’ her mother, Crystal Hurta, told Daily Mail.
‘She wasn’t scared at all. They don’t bother her.’
The mother-daughter duo did admit that the alligator was big, but Clair just shrugged it off.
‘Now, if she sees a snake, it’s game on. She will be in that boat so fast,’ the mother joked.
It’s not uncommon for gators to be seen in that portion of the Colorado River, but that didn’t mean a bolt of adrenaline didn’t run through Crystal when she saw the animal near her daughter.
‘Gators are there and we know they are. We have had some encounters over the years,’ she told Daily Mail.
‘There has been an instance in the past when one started swimming towards the boat. When instances like that occur I contact the game warden because that is a nuisance gator.
‘I prefer training in the colder months so you know you don’t see them then.’
Alligators are not usually a threat as they fear humans, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said.
If an alligator hisses it is a warning to move farther away.
‘It is extremely rare for wild alligators to chase people, but they can run up to 35 miles per hour for short distances on land,’ the department said.
‘Never make the mistake of thinking that an alligator is slow and lethargic. Alligators are extremely quick and agile and will defend themselves when cornered.’
Earlier this year, a woman was dragged out of her canoe in Florida by an alligator.
The woman had been near the mouth of Tiger Creek into Lake Kissimmee, south of Orlando, when she was attacked just after 4pm on Tuesday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said.
The woman went into the water and wasn’t seen again until her body was recovered nearby.