Man Crashes Car After Pet Snake Attacks Him

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NAPLES, Fla. -- A man crashed his car after a pet snake he had wrapped around his neck began attacking him, authorities said.

Witnesses reported that Courtland Page Johnson, 30, of East Naples, was driving erratically and crashed his PT Cruiser into several barricades about 9 p.m. Tuesday. He got out of his car, wrestled with the snake and then drove off, reports said.

When authorities caught up with Johnson at his home, he told them he crashed into another car that had stopped short in front of him. After questioning, Johnson admitted he panicked when his snake bit him.

He had cuts and freshly dried blood on his body, but did not need medical attention, reports said.

Johnson was charged with leaving the scene of a crash.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/8356318/detail.html

If only it had started squeezing, because watching a car come to a screeching halt and seeing a man climb out wrestling with a snake around his neck is possibly the funniest thing I could ever hope to see :7

:bounce:

I'm first!!!

:rofl:

:rofl:

RL

:o

There's a GOT DAMN THING you can do about it.

Stop.

So the SOAP reference doesn't work

/reference nazi

:eyes:

So if you're afraid of snake AND afraid of car travel, it's REALLY scary....

Where's my Guinness?

Had it bitten me, I wouldn't have crashed my car, though. I've been bitten so many times by (non-venomous) snakes that it doesn't phase me. Smaller snakes don't hurt much when they bite because their jaws are, by necessity, weak. Their jaws are held together by ligaments so they can stretch to envelop prey.

I found a really cool 4-and-a-half-foot gopher snake on the road, picked it up and let it wrap around my neck. It could squeeze tightly, but not tightly enough to hurt me. Had I been a gopher, that would have been different. I drove until my cell phone had reception. I wanted to see if my nephew wanted to look at it. That's all. I didn't get in touch with my nephew, so I drove the snake back into its canyon home and turned it loose. :shrug:

Snakes...in a muthafuckin' car! Don't scare me a bit. :D Maybe I'm crazy.

About ten days ago, my little 2-and-a-half-foot corn snake tried to eat me. It was interesting. She grabbed me with her jaws and wrapped her coils around my hand. Every time I moved my hand she squeezed harder. I had a guest at the time--embarrassing--and explained to the guest that if I didn't pour cold water on the snake, she would eat one of my fingers. Of course she couldn't go much farther and would eventually have let go, but I didn't feel like having a finger consumed. It's happened to me before and the snakes tend to be tenacious, not wanting to give up a good meal. So I poured cold water on the snake for about one minute and she let go.

*DON'T READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU'RE EASILY GROSSED OUT*

I usually feed frozen/thawed mice to my snakes so the animals don't suffer (also because putting a live mouse in a snake's cage is hardly a fair predator/prey situation), but one snake won't eat frozen/thawed, so I got some live mice the other day. I don't enjoy watching animals die, but I think it's important for humans to remember that we are all part of the great circle of life. Humans have, in many ways, removed themselves from that circle. Most of us don't dispatch our own prey. In fact, we can't anymore because there are too many of us for the earth to support naturally. I've seen predatory behavior in the wild quite often, including an orca preying on a sea lion.

Anyway, I'd never seen a snake employ such raw power to dispatch its prey before and I gained a new appreciation for the power of a snake's coils. Often prey dies by asphyxiation, but in this case the snake actually crushed the mouse to death. Blood spurted out of the poor animal's mouth and entrails came out its anus. It was actually a much quicker death than asphyxiation. After seeing that, I might think twice about driving with even a four-foot snake wrapped around my neck. :)

Sorry if you think I'm nuts. I just grew up in the country, very used to snakes and other animals people are afraid of. Even though I don't enjoy watching animals die, I can view the predatory process in a scientific way. When the orca killed the sea lion, a little boy close by started crying. When I was a kid, I would have cried, too. As an adult, I can appreciate both the suffering of the sea lion and the hunger of the orca and the fact that nature (and life) is beauty and brutality in equal measure

Thanks for the read. It was most interesting Ladyhawk! :hi:

too tight at times. Makes me a bit nervous.

As a teenager, I had a little water snake named Slimey who would curl up around my neck and arms when I watched TV (typically sports or nature shows) ....sometiems he'd sneak down beneath my shirt sleeve and poke his head out 'round my armpit ... fond memories of those days. I'm kind of glad I never took him on a car ride and much more so a bike ride (my means of transport in those days), though.

Thanks for the intriguing story.

It's a relatively small snake and it was super gentle. It never even attempted to bite anyone. I have been bitten by other smaller snakes though. It's more of an annoyance. As long as it's non-venomous and you know how to handle it, you're fine.

That being said, I would not drive with my snake around my neck. It got tied into a cloth bag for traveling. My python probably would have gotten bored and decided to explore the car though.

The one time I did it, I didn't have a cloth bag for the snake. I'd found it on the road and wanted to show it to my nephew. :shrug: It was an exceptionally docile gopher snake. It only hissed at me a little bit when I picked it up. Then it wrapped itself rather tightly around my neck. It didn't seem to be displaying predatory behavior, though, because it wasn't interested in biting. I think it rather liked the warmth. Once it warmed up a little, it relaxed its hold. The big docile thing just stayed wrapped around my neck for the entire trip, just flicking its tongue occasionally. It never even offered to bite. The damn thing was tamer than half the domestically-bred snakes in my apartment.

(You're right about ball pythons. If anything, they tend to get shy and "ball up" with their heads inside their coils. It's also nice that they don't get too big. Once a constrictor is over ten feet it can kill a person. I don't keep pets that can kill me. :D)

It was a country road and the biggest danger would have been driving off the cliff into the canyon...not a pleasant thought. It's a long, long, LONG way down. I just drove until I came out of the canyon and had a cell phone signal. Then I pulled off the road and made my call. Then I just drove back to the approximate place I'd found the snake and turned him loose. :D

Snakes...in a muthafuckin' car!!!

I once drove with a smaller snake wrapped around my arm for the same reason: It was in the road so I got out and rescued it. If it's safe to do so, I will brake for snakes and get them off the road.

Turtles are pretty common road-crossers around here in the spring & summer. It kind of sucks though when you're trying to save a big snapper that's trying to eat you though, but it can be done.

My ball python was awesome though. I really want to buy another snake. Right now I only have leopard geckos and bearded snakes (including a crippled, vicious dragon). Faustus, the python, knew me. It would never go into a ball when I picked it up, but it would for my friends. It would come out of the ball after a few minutes though and start exploring. It just knew my scent. I used to even have a picture of it coiled up on my cat Midnight, but that cell phone was stolen and so I lost the picture.

I like the look of those guys.

As for snapping turtles, count me out! :) We don't have them in California, but I've seen how far they can reach (friggin' long necks!). Don't you practically have to catch them by the tail? Or the back part of the shell?

I've seen people wrangle the big alligator snappers. They don't have the reach of the common snappers, but they get HUGE. I love the tongue-wiggle lure they use to catch fish.

The only turtles that are common here are Pacific pond turtles. They aren't really fancy, but they are kind of cool. I think the desert may have Gopher tortoises or some other kind of desert tortoise. I'd have to check on that, though.

There was obviously a disconnect from my brain to my fingers there. They're pretty cool looking. One is super nice and the other one is nasty, but usually they're pretty nice.

SNAKES IN A MUTHAFUCKIN' CAR!!!

:hide:

READ MUTHAFUCKIN' POST #2!!!!

:P

:bounce:

And there's a poster for where to call if you think you left something on the subway. The poster had pictures of all the various accoutrements and every day items that are forgotten in one's mad dash before the doors slam shut. I'm checking out the poster and you've got the usual suspects: change, jewelry, umbrellas...prosthetic legs...dentures. What's the last thing I see on the poster?

A SNAKE!

THERE ARE SNAKES ON THE SUBWAY!!!!

Just caught your post on another thread. :-)

I've lived here for 9 years.

O8)

:rofl:

:rofl:

What happened to the poor snake?

No, it's just too damn easy!!

:loveya: