Ball of snakes stuns YouTuber as he records himself exploring Virginia wilderness

If there ever was a good time for an adult to scream like a child, it would be while stumbling onto a nest of snakes.

And that’s what happened days ago, when a YouTuber found a squirming snake ball while exploring an abandoned homestead near Gore, Virginia. That’s near the state’s West Virginia border.

Video of the moment shows Beau Ouimette was coincidentally warning his followers about snakes at the time.

He is seen lifting metal shards off an old stone fireplace — trying to identify their origins — when the last piece comes up to reveal five snakes coiled up underneath.

“Ah jeez, oh my god,” Ouimette yells, gasping for breath and jumping back.

“Did I scream like a little girl? Oh my god. That’s not a copperhead, but it’s a snake. I cannot believe I did that.”

Ouimette — known as Aquachigger to his 1.09 million YouTube followers — says the video shows him ignoring his own advice. However, he’s lucky the snakes weren’t venomous rattlesnakes or copperheads.

They were Northern ring-necked snakes, which grow to 15 inches in Virginia and are known to emit foul odors rather than bite, according to the Virginia Herpetological Society.

“My first thought was that I finally did the most stupid thing in my life,” Ouimette told McClatchy News.

“I’m kinda jumpy when it comes to snakes right now. ... Just a few weeks before this, I accidentally stepped on a rattlesnake late one evening near my camp in Arizona and killed it. The day before that, I was buzzed by a different rattlesnake in Nevada and didn’t realize it until I was editing the video for my channel back home. They’re everywhere!”

Ouimette, who is based in Maryland, says the snake ball incident happened May 3, while he was out using his metal detector.

He has kept a sense of humor about it, posting it with the note: “Just a short little video of me be very startled by a ball of snakes ... if you need a slight jump-scare and laugh.”

The video posted May 4 has gotten more than 330,000 views and nearly 700 comments, many from people who admit they, too, would have been startled.

“Did you bring a change of underwear?” one man wrote.

“Did I just scream like a little girl?!” You and me both buddy, you and me both,” another viewer said.