Yahoo Finance Scaly hitchhiker sneaks in SC woman’s truck hood. Watch it slither out during commute
A South Carolina woman’s commute was made a little more nerve-wracking Monday when a snake emerged from the hood of her truck as she was driving and slithered up the windshield.
Where it came from or how long it had been there, the Batesburg-Leesville resident can’t say for certain, but she believes it must have crawled in while she was taking her lunch break at a local park. Then waited until she was cruising back to work at 25 mph to introduce itself.
“I remember thinking this is the stuff that happens to other people, not to me,” she told McClatchy News.
After she got past the initial shock, and fears it might find a way to slither inside the truck cabin, she pulled out her phone and started recording.
“I knew nobody was going to believe that had happened,” she said.
From her closeup view, she could tell the hitchhiker was not one of South Carolina’s six venomous snakes, and her fear turned to fascination.
The black and gray snake isn’t timid, quickly moving across and up the windshield before exploring the rest of the exterior, hanging on despite the speed and passing traffic.
Soon, it disappeared from view, and she didn’t care for that at all.
“The only thing I kept thinking was that if I pull off right now I’ll never make it to work, because I am not getting back in this truck,” she said. “I just slowly drove and hoped for the best.”
Venomous or not, the snake “was probably as freaked out as I was,” and she had no interest in getting within striking distance. So when she pulled into the office parking lot, she took a cautious approach.
“It was on my driver side the last time that I saw it so I opened my passenger side, scooted over and jumped out of that really quick,” she said. “Even though it wasn’t venomous I did not want it to strike me as well.”
All in all, the ordeal lasted about five minutes, she said. But it felt longer.
She stepped away from the truck and saw the snake was now wrapped around the truck, with its head resting on the driver side window, body hugging the back of the cabin, and its tail resting on the roof.
No snake wrangler, she simply went into the office and got back to work, leaving the ridesharing serpent to wander off on its own.
The coast looked clear when she clocked out for the day, but she checked under the hood and the wheel wells to be sure. She did the same Tuesday morning, she said. It’s become a new ritual.
“I think it will probably be awhile before I feel completely safe in the cab of a truck again,” she said.
