HOUSTON (CNN NEWSOURCE) — A guy in Texas owns a seafood restaurant, he's a jiu-jitsu champion, and now - he can add another title to his resume: alligator wrangler.
Mike Trinh says he was getting the kids ready for their first day of school when a five to six-foot gator showed up on his driveway.
As a restaurant owner, Trinh is used to being in charge and he has no problem handling a fresh catch.
"I knew what I had to do, so it was nothing," Trinh said.
And he has the same attitude... toward live gator.
Trinh says, when his daughter first told him about the wild animal in their driveway, he didn't believe her.
"I was like nah, kid stop it," he said.
"On your first day, I know you're trying to skip school. Stop it. She said, no! There's an alligator! I was like, this kid is something else. So, I walked in front. Man! There's an alligator! She ain't lying!"
He says he threw towels over its eyes to calm it down.
Something he'd seen before on television.
"I've been watching Steve Irwin since I was a kid, you know what I mean, so it's one of my heroes," Trinh said.
Next, he relied on what he's learned as a jiu-jitsu champion and MMA fighter.
"I took a sledgehammer. I didn't hit it. I took a- pinned the mouth. Once I got closer, I put my knee on it. And kind of like jui jitsu, its called knee in belly, I had a knee on it, and spinned to the back, sitting on the back and I just grabbed the mouth. Once you grab the mouth and that's it. That is, he's done."
Instead of waiting on the game warden or a nuisance control hunter, Trinh used his own truck to release the gator into Oyster Creek.
"Yup! Back in the wild!" he said.
No animals or people were hurt in the process.
An accomplishment that came along with photos Trinh says he may hang with pride on his restaurant wall.
"Me and the gator? Probably, yah!"
The game warden there says alligators less than 10 to 12 feet long that aren't on public property aren't considered emergency situations.
