Deadly eastern brown snake travels unnoticed in car for hours

A deadly snake appears to have travelled unnoticed in a car for hours, giving the driver a scary shock.

Horrifying pictures have revealed the moment a Queensland driver realised they had escaped a potentially fatal ending with a hidden passenger.

David Voss from Gladstone Region Snake Catchers shared pictures of the deadly eastern brown snake inside a car on Facebook this week, saying it was a “one in a million” find.

Mr Voss believes the snake had been in his customer’s car for “hours”, but the driver didn’t notice until stopping at the shops.

When he went back to his car, the deadly snake was on the driver’s seat, prompting him to call a snake catcher … who happened to be just metres away.

“It was an absolute fluke,” Mr Voss told news.com.au, explaining he was getting dinner when his phone rang regarding the snake.

“I do get the occasional call out to a snake in a car but certainly not a venomous snake like an eastern brown. That’s extremely rare that something like that would happen.”

An eastern brown snake makes its way on to the driver’s seat. Gladstone Region Snake Catchers / Facebook

Mr Voss said he expected the “brown snake” the driver had reported to be a spotted python, as they are common in the area and come out at night time, but was shocked to find a five-foot-long eastern brown snake.

“It was sliding over the seats and under the seats, and around the baby’s seat,” he said.

“He’s very fortunate because eastern browns are very timid, a very nervous snake so they tend to react to very little (stimulation).

“You only have to move your feet or something like that and it could have struck out.”

And it wasn’t an easy catch.

“They are a real daytime snake, not really a nocturnal snake. Catching them in the daytime they are very very fast when they strike so you’re always on guard,” Mr Voss said.

“At night time it’s a little bit more difficult because you can’t see as well, plus it was in a car in a confined space.”

He believed the snake had travelled with the driver from Rockhampton to Gladstone.

That’s a distance of about 100km.

Mr Voss said he found scale damage on the snake’s tail and guessed it had initially been in the engine bay.

“I did find one spot on the car’s chassis that could have been the snake’s entry point into the cabin,” he wrote on Facebook.

“The second deadliest snake on the planet travelling unnoticed in a car with you for a couple of hours!!”

The driver was lucky a snake catcher was close by. Gladstone Region Snake Catchers / Facebook

The incident on Monday night follows warnings of an increase of venomous snakes in NSW.

Australian Snake Catchers’ Sean Cade, who works in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, told news.com.au last week call outs were already ramping up, averaging eight to 10 a day.

“The thing out of the ordinary compared to the last few years is the size of the snakes we’re getting … bigger, healthier, fatter snakes,” he said.

Mr Voss said while he hadn’t experienced an increase of calls in his region in Queensland, they had started earlier.

He would usually start call outs in the last week of September, but this year was already responding to calls in August.

The eastern brown snake causes the highest number of fatalities of any snake in Australia.

St John Ambulance training manager and former paramedic Lara Bisley said the most important thing if bitten by a snake bite is to immediately call triple-0.

“Ultimately you want to stop the venom from travelling, which means as you’re waiting for the ambulance you should keep the patient still, lay them flat and wrap a bandage over the site of the bite,” Ms Bisley said.

“Follow this with a pressure bandage – starting from the fingers or toes and wrapping upwards as far as you can go.”

Originally published as Deadly eastern brown snake travels unnoticed in car for hours