Let this serve as an important reminder to check your belongings for dangerous animals before you put them on. A teenager in Arkansas felt that something was off while he was wearing his football helmet at high school practice. It was only an hour later that he was shocked to discover that he was doing warmups with a venomous snake mere inches from his head.
Venomous snake discovered slithering inside player’s football helmet
On August 6, a high school student at Maumelle High School found out that the strange movement coming from his football helmet was actually a two-foot cottonmouth viper, according to a report from KATV and WBFF.
The teen had been wearing the helmet for an hour during warmups when he alerted his assistant coach to inspect it. That was when they found a snake slithering within the padding of the headgear.
Suffice it to say, practice was halted while Maumelle Animal Services responded to the call. Officers arrived on the scene but couldn’t determine what kind of snake was hiding inside. They thought it was possibly a copperhead, but after ruling that out, they believed it to be a water snake or a cottonmouth. Animal service technicians later confirmed that was indeed a cottonmouth, one of the most prolific snakes in Arkansas.
Chris Davis, the director for Maumelle Animal Services, said that it was extremely rare to find the reptile embedded inside the football equipment.
“I’ve removed a snake out of a car vent, in the engine, purses, backpacks,” he said. “In a helmet? Never.”
It was a small miracle that the teen escaped unscathed as the viper could have struck him at any time over the hour. Its venom known to cause severe pain, rapid swelling, and blood clotting.
“It was unreal,” Davis said. “You had to kind of be there and take pictures to say this was real.”
To remove the snake as safely as possible, Animal Services submerged the helmet in water and grabbed the cottonmouth with a pole when it slithered out. The viper has since been relocated.
Meanwhile, the football player took the incident in stride and was seemingly unfazed, continuing practice with a different helmet.
