Police officers in Pennsylvania were called to a home for reports of a man in cardiac arrest, and when they arrived they were shocked to see a 28-year-old man lying on the floor, unresponsive, with a massive 15-foot snake wrapped around his neck.
One officer described it as a scene from a horror movie.
Get a pet snake, they said. It'll be cool, they said...
"I've been doing this job for 19 years and this is the first time I've seen anything like this," Lieutenant Peter Nickischer said.
The officers killed the snake in one shot.
Police say the snake's midsection was strangling the man, but they managed to shoot the snake in the head and pull him to safety.
"Because the snake was so large, the midsection of the snake was wrapped around the throat," said Lt. Peter Nickischer with the Upper Macungie Township Police Department. "The head of the snake was just far enough away from the victim that the officer made a split-second decision and he proceeded to shoot the snake in the head."
Nickischer said the snake did not die right away.
He said the snake slithered away after being shot (IN THE HEAD).
Nickischer also said he doesn't know how else they would've released the man from the snake's deadly grasp.
"It wasn't like it just died," Lt. Nickischer said. "It started to slither away, luckily away from the officers, away from the direction that they were trying to pull this gentleman. They realized it was a matter of life and death with seconds to make that decision. Praise the officers. They did what they had to do. It was a safe shoot."
The 28-year-old was taken to a local hospital for emergency medical treatment.
His current conditions are still unknown, but Fox29 was told that it is a "very serious" situation.
The man's neighbors say they have frequently seen the young man holding a snake in his front yard, and investigators confirmed that there were several snake enclosures in the home.
Let's pray for this young man's recovery.
And let's hope he finds interest in a less deadly pet in the future.
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