In a bizarre series of events, a Tennessee family experienced the worst jump scare of their lives when they encountered a snake on the hood of their car. The shocking incident was caught on camera, with the now-viral clip showing the reptile’s cameo on the vehicle as the family cruised through the streets.
Driver records a deadly snake crossing their car hood mid-drive
Analissa Hensley, a Tennessee resident, recently shared footage of a snake slithering onto the hood of her family’s car while they were driving.
“I’m sitting there like, ‘We have a huge snake on the hood of our car,'” Hensley told WKRN. “We were on our way to Mt. Juliet, going to pick up some soccer stuff for my youngest daughter, and we’re just having a conversation, and my husband’s like, ‘There’s a snake,'” she added.
The Tennessee woman remarked that she couldn’t believe the sight of a snake slithering its way onto her family’s car mid-drive. “So I started recording, and it started working its way over to my side,” she noted.
Estimating the snake to be five feet long, Hensley tried pulling over to the shoulder, but the snake ended up “rolling and going off the side.”
Since then, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Biodiversity Biologist Mallory Tate has identified the creature as a grey rat snake. “It is a nonvenomous snake that we have in Tennessee,” she revealed. “Pretty common. Most often when we have gray rat snakes, specifically in cars, it’s because prey are using the cars. So either a bird has built a nest in there or has started to build a nest — usually a Carolina wren — or there are mice in the car — gray rats. Snakes are really good at scent detection. That’s why we find them in our chicken coops, near bird nests, [and] near mice,” Tate added.
However, Tate noted that such snakes pose no danger to humans. She explained, “They’re not dangerous to you, your kids, or your pets, or your livestock. But if you [can,] just keep your cars cleaned out. I always recommend no wood piles near the house,” adding that “it doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
