mugley43's blog

garden snakes can be dangerous...

         GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE DANGEROUS...

        Garden Grass Snakes also known as Garter
        Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous.
        Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.

        A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of
        potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the
        wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to
        protect them from a possible freeze.

        It turned out that a little green garden grass
        snake was hidden in one of the plants. When
        it had warmed up, it slithered out and the
        wife saw it go under the sofa.

        She let out a very loud scream.

        The husband (who was taking a shower) ran
        out into the living room naked to see what
        the problem was. She told him there was a
        snake under the sofa

        He got down on the floor on his hands and
        knees to look for it. About that time the
        family dog came and cold-nosed him on the
        behind. He thought the snake had bitten him,
        so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

        His wife thought he had had a heart attack,
        so she covered him up, told him to lie still and
        called an ambulance.

        The attendants rushed in, would not listen to
        his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and
        started carrying him out.

        About that time, the snake came out from
        under the sofa and the Emergency Medical
        Technician saw it and dropped his end of the
        stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg
        and why he is still in the hospital.

        The wife still had the problem of the snake in
        the house, so she called on a neighbor who
        volunteered to capture the snake. He armed
        himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began
        poking under the couch. Soon he decided it
        was gone and told the woman, who sat down
        on the sofa in relief.

        But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between
        the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling
        around. She screamed and fainted, the snake
        rushed back under the sofa.

        The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed
        out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

        The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from
        shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's
        mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her
        husband in the back of the head with a bag of
        canned goods, knocking him out and cutting
        his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

        The noise woke the woman from her dead faint
        and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor
        with his wife bending over him, so she assumed
        that the snake had bitten him. She went to the
        kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and
        began pouring it down the man's throat.

        By now, the police had arrived. Breath here......

        They saw the unconscious man, smelled the
        whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had
        occurred. They were about to arrest them all,
        when the women tried to explain how it all
        happened over a little green snake.

        The police called an ambulance, which took
        away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

        Now, the little snake again crawled out from
        under the sofa and one of the policemen drew
        his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake
        and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell
        over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb
        broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

        The other policeman tried to beat out the
        flames, and fell through the window into
        the yard on top of the family dog who,
        startled, jumped out and raced into the
        street, where an oncoming car swerved
        to avoid it and smashed into the parked
        police car.

        Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning
        drapes and called in the fire department.
        The firemen had started raising the fire
        ladder when they were halfway down the
        street. The rising ladder tore out the
        overhead wires, put out the power, and
        disconnected the telephones in a ten-square
        city block area (but they did get the house
        fire out).

        Time passed! Both men were discharged
        from the hospital, the house was repaired,
        the dog came home, the police acquired a
        new car and all was right with their world.

        A while later they were watching TV and the
        weatherman announced a cold snap for that
        night. The wife asked her husband if he thought
        they should bring in their plants for the night.

        And that's when he shot her.