A (professional?) gator wrangler is playing with (see teasing/taunting) a gator in front of a crowd at the Hard Rock Hotel in Florida.
He does the usual, hand on the gator’s mouth, touches its head, moves it quick before the gator clamps down on it for a fleshy snack, kinda’ tricks.
At about the :45 second mark, the (now and rightfully so, enraged) gator has its mouth open and ‘Crocodile Dummy’ has his hand in the gator’s mouth and is showing the crowd his prowess and control over the beast by holding his hand inside the mouth and directing the gator to lower its head. Cool trick, right? That is until the gator snaps at his hand and he pulls it away suddenly – looking like he seemingly avoided a close call. But upon further inspection (and a slow-motion close up) you can see a chunk of his (index) finger inside the gator’s mouth. It’s at this point where the trainer walks out of the pool sans finger tip and the staff (covering for the dis-fingered trainer) tries to get the finger tip from inside the gator’s mouth – which is worth the price of admission.
I’m assuming they pushed off the ‘Let the kids swim with the gator’ promotion ’til another time.
