By Larissa Ham, ABC News
Tim from Melbourne Snake Control was contacted, quickly identified the tiger snake (the fourth most venomous snake in the world) and volunteered his services. Photo: Supplied / Victoria Police
- A woman was driving along the Monash Freeway on Saturday morning when she felt a snake slithering up her leg.
- She weaved through traffic, pulled over to the side of the freeway, and leapt out of her car to safety.
- The shaken driver was taken to the hospital for observation, and the snake was released "well away from houses, people and pets".
You might have heard of the movie Snakes on a Plane.
But what happens if you're driving down a busy city freeway, and you suddenly, terrifyingly, feel a tiger snake slithering up your leg?
That was the case for a woman on Melbourne's Monash Freeway on Saturday morning, who somehow fended off a venomous tiger snake while weaving through traffic, before pulling over and jumping out of her car to safety.
"Officers were called to reports of a barefoot woman on the side of the Monash Freeway, near the Toorak Road exit, attempting to flag down passing vehicles about 10:40am," a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
"When police arrived at the scene, they were prepared for anything, except what came next."
The driver was still in a state of shock, police said, and wanted to ensure she hadn't been bitten.
So paramedics assessed the driver, while police called in some outside help to take the snake into temporary custody, which arrived in the form of Melbourne snake catcher Tim Nanninga.
Nanninga quickly got to work locating the tiger snake, one of the world's most venomous creatures.
"It was actually inside the cab, under the dash. The poor lady, she was driving and it's come out from under her steering wheel, straight onto her lap and onto her leg," he said.
"I don't know how, but she managed to get the car off the road and onto the side, and she's called police straight away."
He said it wasn't unusual for a snake to slither into a vehicle.
"But I guess on the freeway it's definitely unusual, with all the traffic stopped and everyone holding their cameras up and filming me."
Nanninga joked that he put on a Barry White CD to calm the snake down.
However, in reality, the snake, which released a dirty, musky smell, gave its location away.
"Tiger snakes especially have a bit of an aroma to them, so to speak, so if they know they're being chased or watched, or if they feel threatened, they can musk," he said.
In this case, the smell was coming from the rear of the car, so he had a look in the back.
"I straightaway noticed the little tail underneath one of the rear seats."
The snake was eventually released nearby, "well away from houses, people and pets", Mr Nanninga stressed.
As for the rattled driver, she was taken to hospital for observation, with the snake catcher checking in on her about an hour later.
"She was still very shaken up, but a very tough woman, I don't know how I would have handled that," he said.
For police, it ended one of the strangest welfare checks they've done in recent times.
"If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times … no two days are the same at Victoria Police," the spokesperson said
- ABC
