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MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — A Myrtle Beach woman received the surprise of her life Tuesday night when she and her 14-year-old son were preparing for bed and noticed a 7-foot, 100-pound alligator sitting outside their front door, WMBF reports.

They were getting ready for bed when the family dog began barking. That’s when Mandy Johnson-Plucinski turned on the porch light and saw the alligator peering at them through the closed door.

Shocked, she called the Department of Natural Resources, who gave her the number to contact Russell “The Snake Chaser” Cavender.

As the family waited for the snake wrangler, the gator never once moved.

“He didn’t move. He stayed there the whole 40 minutes,” she said.

By 11 p.m., Cavender was able to wrangle and remove the alligator from the property.

“I thought, this could only happen to us,” Plucinski said about the incident.