Watch: Stowaway snake hitches a ride in Louisiana woman's car
Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A Louisiana woman returned to her car after visiting a store and discovered she had a stowaway: a yellow-bellied river snake.
Amanda Normand said she visited the AT&T store on Johnston Street in Lafayette and returned to her car to find she wasn't the only one trying to take a drive.
"When I was leaving to get in my car, I noticed something hanging at the bottom of my car," Normand told KADN-TV. "I thought maybe it was a booksack string that I forgot, but once I noticed it, it's a live snake!"
Normand said she was terrified of the serpent and enlisted the help of some nearby bystanders to eject the stowaway.
A man was able to remove the snake from the car and release it into a nearby bush.
"So, people be aware, snakes are there, and clearly, they're real! And they will get into cars," Normand said.
Personnel at Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater in Florida recently found a slithering stowaway of their own -- on a helicopter.
"This unexpected stowaway was found napping on a Jayhawk tailwheel," the station said. "He reluctantly departed the scene when confronted."
Coast Guard personnel identified the serpent as a 2-foot corn snake, a non-venomous species native to Florida.
