We’ve all had bad days, but we’ve probably never had a “fleeing the cops on three tires, leaping into a swamp, and getting double-teamed by an alligator” kind of bad day.
Let’s set the scene from an article on the Wide Open Spaces website: A 40-year-old Louisiana man in a Toyota Supra decides to turn Interstate 10 into his personal racetrack. After driving wildly enough to attract the state troopers, blowing out a tire, and smashing into a concrete barrier, most people would raise their hands and accept the impending, very expensive ticket.
But our protagonist, Victor, chose adventure.
Suspecting he might be a little more than just “tired,” troopers approached. Victor decided his best legal defense was a track-and-field sprint. He vaulted over the highway barrier and plunged headfirst into the Louisiana bayou.
Now, if you’ve ever been to the American South, you know the local waters aren’t filled with rubber duckies. When troopers tracked him down, Victor doubled down on his strategy and ran deeper into the muck.
That is when he met the true local law enforcement: a very disgruntled alligator.
The Official Verdict: “He fled again into a swampy area, where he was attacked by an alligator and sustained injuries to both arms,” the police press release stated.
Think about the sheer adrenaline required to get bitten on both arms by a literal dinosaur, shake it off, and keep running. Victor was finally captured thanks to some high-tech police drones, proving that you can’t outrun the eye in the sky, and you definitely can’t outswim a gator.
Meanwhile, Up Here in the North…
Reading a story like this from afar makes you appreciate regional hazards. Down south, you have to worry about camouflaged log-monsters snapping at your limbs if you step off the pavement.
Up here? We don’t have gators to worry about, but we do have other critters. If you decide to pull a Victor and sprint blindly into our brush, you most likely won’t get bitten by a swamp-dweller. Instead, you risk stumbling into a 700-pound Grizzly Bear having a bad day.
- Southern arrest hazard: Becoming a reptile’s afternoon snack.
- Northern arrest hazard: Getting absolutely clotheslined by a fuzzy tank with extremely sharp claws and teeth while also having a terribly high IQ and being able to outrun a racehorse.
Honestly, it’s a coin toss on which is worse, but at least a grizzly doesn’t require you to swim through green slime first.
Miraculously, everyone survived. Victor was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, the alligator went back to doing alligator things, and the police got their man.
Victor is now facing a mountain of charges, including a DWI and resisting an officer. The takeaway here is pretty simple: if you’ve had a few too many, call a cab. Because if the flashing blue lights don’t get you, the local wildlife absolutely will.
