A Texas woman was left in shock and with bruises and gashes on her arm after an unusual encounter with a snake and a hawk.
The incident took place on July 25. Peggy Jones, 64, and her husband Wendell Jones, 66, had finished a day of yard work on their six-acre property in Silsbee, Texas, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, when a four-and-a-half-foot snake seemingly fell from the sky and wrapped itself tightly around Peggy Jones' forearm, The New York Times reported.
"I immediately screamed and started swinging my arm to shake the snake off," she told the outlet. "I was screaming, 'Jesus, help me, please, Jesus, help me!'"
As Peggy Jones struggled, the snake wrapped itself more tightly around her arm and hissed and lunged at her face, striking her glasses. Moments later, a brown-and-white hawk flying overhead, which it turned out had dropped the snake, swooped down to join the fracas.
The hawk snatched and scratched at her arm "three or four times" before successfully uncoiling the snake and flying off. It left Peggy Jones' arm scratched, bruised, and punctured in the 15 to 20 seconds it took to reclaim its meal.
"I looked down at my arm and it was totally covered in blood," Peggy Jones said.
Wendell Jones eventually noticed his wife screaming and promptly helped her into their truck and drove to the hospital.
"By the time I got to her, she was pretty hysterical," he said. "It took me probably three minutes to actually understand what had happened."
Peggy Jones was given bandages and antibiotics at the hospital, where medical professionals clarified that her injuries were not due to a snake bite, but were caused by the talons of the hawk.
Peggy Jones then noticed her glasses had been chipped and that there was a liquid substance on the lenses that she suspected might be venom from the snake.
She said she believes she will make a full recovery, however, admitted to experiencing nightmares linked to the incident. Despite this though, she said she was fortunate to escape the ordeal without major injuries.
"I consider myself to be the luckiest person alive," she said. "I was attacked by a snake and a hawk and I lived to tell about it."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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