HOUMA – It started out as a lazy Saturday afternoon around a backyard pool but turned into the answer to an 18-year-old’s wish.

Yen-Zen Chen, a native of Taiwan, is spending the summer in Houma with his aunt, Kay Lynn Cox, to improve his English.

Houma Courier

Yen-Zen Chen, 18, a Taiwan resident visiting Houma for the summer, shows off the alligator found in a Broadmoor backyard this weekend.

He was at Lelia Trosclair’s Broadmoor house, his aunt’s best friend, to swim with her family.

As Chen and Trosclair talked, the visiting college student expressed his desire to see an alligator before he returned to Asia.

“He was looking at some pictures that a woman took at a swamp tour,” Trosclair, 47, said. “He said he wanted to see an alligator up close.”

As everyone prepared to climb into the above-ground pool, the Trosclair’s Boston terrier, Louie, began barking wildly at a fern on the back patio.

They initially dismissed his antics, but everyone went to see what was upsetting the dog.

“He was going crazy, barking,” she said, noting the dog is blind in one eye. “His hair is standing up and looking toward the patio doors and where the fern is.”

Underneath the fern was a 4-foot alligator, much to the Trosclairs’ shock and Chen’s delight.

The family was able to keep the feisty reptile cornered until a professional alligator handler arrived. It was tied up and removed from the neighborhood.

But not before Chen got his photograph taken with the reptile as proof of his close encounter with nature.

“He was jumping up and down like he won a million dollars,” Trosclair said of Chen’s reaction, adding the boy cradled the alligator like a baby.

“It was kind of scary, but it was exciting because that boy got his heart’s desire,” she said.

Trosclair said the family has lived in Broadmoor for 10 years and this is the first time they saw an alligator in their yard. They speculate it came through a culvert in their front yard and was able to make its way to the back through a 6-inch opening in their fence.

Since the experience this weekend, Trosclair said she is more cautious when she steps into her backyard, especially since the hole in the fence hasn’t been fixed yet.

“We will be more cautious,” she said. “I am not just going to go and pull weeds.”

Even four days after the experience, Chen hasn’t stopped talking about seeing the alligator and has e-mailed numerous photos to his friends and family back home, Cox said.

“It was the best experience he’s ever had since he came to the states,” Cox, 57, said. “To him that was a very rare experience.”