If you suffer from Ophidiophobia, look away now.
A Victorian woman has fortunately emerged unharmed after tangling with a tiger snake while driving city-bound on Melbourne’s busy Monash Freeway.
Police were called to conduct a welfare check on a barefoot woman flagging down passing cars on the side of the freeway near the Toorak Road exit on Saturday morning.
Officers arrived to find the woman in a state of shock, explaining that she had felt a snake slithering up her leg while travelling at 80km/h on the urban thoroughfare.
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In the face of overwhelming fear, she mustered the composure to shift across into the left lane before pulling over in the emergency lane.
Incredibly, the terrified driver was able to exit her vehicle without sustaining a bite from the large snake, which is among the top five most venomous species in the world. Nevertheless, she was taken to hospital for observation.
Police called Tim Nanninga from Melbourne Snake Control to extract the reptile from the Toyota Kluger.
“If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times… no two days are the same at Victoria Police,” said a Victoria Police spokesperson.
Source: Victoria Police
Mr Nanninga dragged the snake out from underneath the rear seats, before bagging it up and relocating it away from the public.
Tiger snakes can be found right across the southern areas of Australia, including in densely populated areas such as inner Melbourne.
It was a lucky escape for the unsuspecting driver, as the tiger snake is considered extremely dangerous to humans due to its large size, aggressive defensive behaviours, and toxic venom.
