NY driver rattled by snake under hood

[September 27, 2008]  NEW HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) -- Here's one carpooler you'd rather leave at home. A 5-foot rattlesnake stowed away in the nice, warm engine compartment of a New Yorker's pickup truck.

The snake apparently slipped aboard at Tim McCarty's Orange County home and exited through the truck's wheel well at his workplace - causing some excitement around the Spring Hill Ambulance Corps in Rockland County.

The paramedic, an avid outdoorsman, initially thought it was a harmless milk snake. Then he saw the rattles.

Says McCarty: "I'm just glad that I didn't step on it."

Experts caught the snake and returned it to the wild.

[Associated Press]

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