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.Terrified, 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 one of
the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher.
That's when the husband 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.Breathe 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 garden 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.
