JARRATT, Va. -- A man on his way from New Hampshire to Florida got quite a scare driving down Interstate 95 in Virginia on Friday morning when a snake slithered out from the dashboard of his U-Haul truck. The driver and his passenger pulled off I-95, entered the town of Jarratt, parked the U-Haul at a car dealership and asked for help.
"I was sitting at my desk," Owen Ford employee Jason Lowery said. "A traveler came in and hollered at one of the service technicians 'I got a snake coming out from behind the dashboard.'" When Lowery jumped up to help, he said the other man in the U-Haul was holding half of the snake in his hands.
"He was holding it to keep it from going back up in the dashboard," Lowery said. "He was trying to pull him out, but he wasn't coming out."
Lucky Streich (left) and Jason Lowery (right) check out the snake removed from U-Haul (PHOTO: Emporia Independent-Messenger)
Unable to set the snake free, the travelers and workers called Critter Control to take care of the stowaway snake.
"When I got here, they left it all to me," Critter Control of Virginia Beach operator Lucky Streich said."We've had snake calls, but not so much with someone pulling off the highway with a snake under their dash."
Streich said after getting advice from the home office in Michigan, he used ice to help dislodge the stuck snake.
Lucky Streich removes snake from U-Haul dashboard (PHOTO: Emporia Independent-Messenger)
"Inched him out with ice and cooled him down," he said. "He just needs some love and care now."
The five-foot-long snake was handed over to animal control.
Streich said he believed a previous driver lost the snake in the truck and never reported it missing.
He said the travelers seemed relieved to get back on the road -- snake free.
"We looked under the dash and did not see any more snakes," Streich said.
