Police hear plenty of wild excuses when they pull a person over for speeding, but one Australian man’s real sssstory might be a cut above the rest.
The 27-year-old man, identified by police only as “Jimmy,” says he used a knife and a seatbelt to fight off a deadly brown snake that had coiled around his leg while he was driving a truck in Queensland, Australia, on June 15. Police pulled him over after clocking the vehicle at 123 kilometres an hour, but they let him go after they heard his incredible story — and saw the dead snake that proved it.
Queensland Police released bodycam footage of the roadside stop on Wednesday in a Facebook post that admitted the “slimy passenger” would make any driver “hyssssterical.”
The video shows Jimmy telling police he’s just killed a deadly brown snake that may have bit him on the leg.
“I think it has bitten me. It was in the car with me,” Jimmy tells the officer in the bodycam footage. “You can feel my heart, mate.”
The office is initially skeptical, but Jimmy points him to the bed of the truck where the dead snake is draped across some bags.
“Oh, that one?” the officer says.
Police called paramedics and waited with Jimmy until they arrived.
The frightened driver told police that the snake came into the truck near his gearstick and started climbing up between his legs.
“It started to wrap around me and then its head just starting striking at the chair,” he said.
Jimmy ultimately pulled over, killed the snake with his knife then tossed it in back. He took off again at high speed for the nearest hospital, fearing he’d been bitten by the venomous serpent.
Paramedics determined that Jimmy was in shock but had not been bitten.
“It was pretty bloody terrifying,” Jimmy told police. He added that he was relieved to be pulled over. “I have never been so happy to see red and blue lights,” he said.
“The eastern brown snake is a highly venomous snake and one of the deadliest in the world,” Queensland Police wrote in a news release. They added that the snakes are protected under Queensland law, but this was a “particularly unique situation.”
Jimmy managed to avoid getting a ticket or a snakebite from the encounter — though he’ll probably be peeking under his seat for snakes for the rest of his life.
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