Moment when dozens of swimmers become trapped on a platform in Lake Texas as an alligator lurks nearby

Footage shows dozens of swimmers becoming trapped on a raised platform in a Texas lake after seeing an alligator nearby.

The series of clips, shared over the weekend, shows at least 18 people standing on the floating platform at Huntsville State Park — a 2,000-acre heavily wooded attraction just north of Houston — as the unwelcome visitor lurks in the waters below.

The videos were recorded by concerned Houstoner Alvaro Ruiz, who used his phone to record the swimmer’s final rescue.

In captions in Spanish, Ruiz explained how the swimmers became stranded on the floating island — while showing video of what appears to be a crowd of more than 100 onlookers that the gator attracted.

Another showed the troublesome gator up close — seemingly waiting for a chance to get hold of one of the wary revelers — while later clips showed park rangers using a boat to take them to shore.

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The event served as a healthy reminder of the dangers of the reptilian quadrupeds, which are known to be more aggressive during the months of April to June – their mating season.

But commentators familiar with the Alligator-infested area of ​​Northeast Texas were quick to point out that swimmers are regularly warned of their presence in the murky waters — with this group apparently ignoring those warnings.

“Sorry folks, but the gators are in their natural habitat,” one commenter remarked on Ruiz’s first video, which shows onlookers gathering advice and yelling at those stranded — while the gator remains completely cloaked and unseen.

In another similar clip posted minutes later, the gator can be seen briefly surfacing as the swimmers watch helplessly — as is the case with the myriad of park visitors who crowd around the action from a safe distance.

“Those people are way too calm,” one user remarked of members of the aforementioned group, many of whom appear to be laughing in the now-viral footage.

“I would have watched from my house,” the commenter – one of more than 3 million users who watched the clip – quickly added.

Another claimed that park sports signage around the lake advised against swimming due to an abundance of alligators — warnings that were ignored or went unnoticed leading up to the scare, which occurred Sunday.

‘We humans can’t follow the rules!!’ They wrote. “There are signs of alligators all over that lake.”

That said, while alligators are an expected sight in the Lone Star State — where there are an estimated half a million alone — they are much less common than their counterparts in swampy areas like Florida and Louisiana, where populations range well into the millions.

Consequently, Texans are often more surprised by an alligator in their home state — and can often dismiss warnings that indicate their presence.

Another phenomenon that may pave the way for a false sense of security is the lack of violent alligator attacks in Texas, only one of which has occurred in recent history, according to Bayou City Gator Savers trapper Tim Deramus.

That attack, the trapper explained, took place in the month of September — after a kayaker unexpectedly jumped into the water where a mother gator had laid her eggs.

“It was around Sept. 15 when the babies came out of their nest and the kayaker finally jumped into the water,” he told Fox Weather last year about the rare post-mating attack, which happened in 2020.

‘He didn’t know the nest was on the bank where he jumped out to swim. So the mother, the female gator, grabbed hold of it.

The alligator bit his hand and arm and pulled him under – he escaped and went swimming to the shore. And then the alligator actually grabbed him by the shoulder again and he was able to get away.

“I believe he’s fine,” he told the station.

People like Deramus have been tasked with containing the southern state’s gator population after learning how to wrangle at a one-day seminar nearly a decade ago.

Since then he’s had quite a few run-ins with the beasts, who don’t normally attack humans unless threatened – with the lion’s share of these incidents occurring at this time of year.

“It’s the beginning of mating season,” Deramus recently explained of how he gets at least seven times as many calls during the gators’ mating months. “So more of the males are just crazy looking for females.”

By July, when mating season is over, he says he usually gets calls from Texans complaining about an alligator five times a week—rather than the same number in a day.

A seasoned trapper, he advises all civilians and professionals when confronted with an alligator, rather than attempting to remove it himself.

This course of action ultimately saved Huntsville Park’s swimmers from their unexpected incarceration — with videos posted by Ruiz showing a park ranger in a boat rescuing the captive swimmers and bringing them to shore in waves.

It is still unclear on Tuesday how long they were detained.

However, according to a caption from the creator of TikTok, no one was injured as a result of the incident.

“Thanks to the rangers, everyone is out of danger,” he wrote.