PHOENIX — Driving around with a snake in your car for two weeks is long enough to make anyone's skin crawl, and that's what happened to one Phoenix woman.
“I was driving around with a snake in my car for two weeks," Milan Watt said. “We got real comfortable in that car. That snake made its home in there.”
Watt made the shocking discovery last week while sitting in the parked car.
“I don’t know what I would have done if I had saw it while I was driving. I would have crashed the car," Watt said.
She told 12News she wouldn't have realized a rattlesnake was sitting curled in the backseat of her car, except her boyfriend happened to look behind him.
"He turned around and he had seen a tongue, kind of like flipping at him," Watt said "I lost my mind."
Watt said the snake didn't rattle or hiss.
“He’s like get out of the car and so I freeze up because when I get scared I freeze.”
Not knowing what to do, Watt called 911 but said she was told firefighters couldn't help since it wasn't a life-threatening emergency.
Her boyfriend opened both doors and used a broken tree branch to fling the reptile free.
“In a state where there’s lots of critters and lots of things that can get into small spaces, personal spaces to know what to do in that situation and who to call," Watt said.
People who come across snakes in their homes or cars can call wildlife rescues or companies who will come to relocate the reptiles.
“In a car, that’s pretty unusual. Snakes are really, really good at getting just about anywhere they want to go," Snake Guru Owner Nicholas Massimo said.
Massimo recommends people back away to a safe distance but try to keep eyes on the snake until it arrives.
“Very slow, calm movements. Try not to do anything that’s really jerky and fast that could startle him," Massimo said.
They'll relocate the snake and even figure out why it might have slithered there in the first place.
“Most of the time, it’s there for a reason, whether that’s food water or shelter," Massimo.
Watt isn't sure how the snake got into her car, but she said it's a family car that's typically parked near a desert space.
Regardless of how the snake slithered in, she'll be checking under the seats for everything she gets behind the wheel.
If you encounter a rattlesnake on your property, you can call one of several experts to have the snake safely and humanely removed. Here are a few options:
- Phoenix Snake Removal — 480-237-9975
- Tucson Snake Removal — 520-308-6211
- Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary — 602-550-1090
- Snake Guru - 928-533-6276
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