Large alligator climbs 10 steps to greet Hilton Head couple at their front door

Marci Parrick and her husband awoke to the sound of a middle-of-the-night crash early Friday morning. When they looked outside, they found a six-foot alligator making itself at home on their Hilton Head porch.

The Parricks’ home, in Port Royal Plantation, is elevated, so the gator had to climb to the top of 10 stairs to reach their door. It then stayed there quietly staring down the driveway.

“It was the craziest thing,” said Parrick. “We could have stepped on it if we walked out the front door. No idea why it would choose to just run up there unless it was trying to chase something up there or it was spooked up there.”

The Parricks don’t have any pets, so what drew the alligator to climb the stairs remains a mystery.

When the plantation security arrived, officers positioned themselves at the end of the driveway and shined a spotlight on the alligator.

Parrick’s husband, Paul, opened the front door to communicate with the security because the gator was still there. The gator wasn’t interested in entering the home, even with the front door open, but it did thrash around and turn about 90 degrees to put Paul Parrick in its line of sight.

“Once the alligator flipped around to the side, I just told him he’s got to close that door,” said Marci Parrick.

But the Parricks weren’t the only ones who were frightened. Being stuck between the spotlight at the end of the driveway and the now well lit house behind it, the Parricks believe the alligator was also quite scared.

“I think it was scared to death actually,” said Marci Parrick. “You just never know what they’re capable of doing when they’re cornered like that.”

The Parricks continued to watch the alligator through their blinds until about 1 a.m. when they shut off all their lights and asked the security guards, who they were now communicating with by phone, to turn off the spotlight and leave.

Soon after, the alligator made his way off the driveway and across the street into a nearby lagoon.

Seeing alligators is uncommon for the Parricks, but they have noticed that the alligators have been more active this summer. Even then, never have they had one come this close to their home, saying they typically stay near the lagoon.

While alligators live in lagoons across the Lowcountry, they sometimes approach homes and businesses along their path. In 2020, one Sea Pines family’s porch was ransacked by a massive alligator known in the community as Big George.

Alligator attacks aren’t uncommon in Beaufort County and sometimes, though rarely, alligator and human encounters can be deadly.

A recent alligator attack in Sun City is believed to be the first fatal attack in the county in four years.