This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

RACELAND, La. — An alligator who drifted to the side of U.S. Highway 90 got pretty lucky this week when Jay Bourg drove by and spotted the lost reptile.

Bourg, who says he’s been catching gators by hand since he was 8 years old, pulled over on Highway 90, crossed the busy road and immediately got to work.

It took about four minutes for Bourg to tire the gator and get his mouth closed so he could scoop him up while his friend David Dotson recorded video.

Bourg explained that he kicked the gator’s mouth a little so the gator would be forced to snap its jaws and burn energy.

Then, Bourg crossed Highway 90 again – gator in hand – taped its mouth and loaded it into the back of a pickup truck.

From there, the gator was taken to Bayou Lafourche and released, preventing the alligator’s death and potential dangerous accidents along Highway 90.

The video has been viewed more than 45,000 times since it was posted on Dotson’s Facebook page June 3.