5-Foot-Long Snake Slithers Into Massachusetts Family’s Home, Bites 9-Month-Old Baby Boy
A Massachusetts family’s relaxing weekend was abruptly disrupted when a snake came slithering into their kitchen and bit a 9-month-old boy.
As Jenna Lees-Rolfe was preparing breakfast on Saturday morning, her infant son, James, played with pots and pans on their kitchen floor by their refrigerator, she explained to WHDH. But as she hurriedly prepared the ingredients, Lees-Rolfe turned around to check on James and saw a horrifying sight: a snake, five-feet in length, had come slithering out from under the refrigerator.
Before Lees-Rolfe could react, the reptile sunk its teeth right into James’ leg.
“I’m still in shock,” Lees-Rolfe, who also has a 3-year-old, told the news station. “The snake was in my house next to my 9-month-old. That was the most shocking thing to me.”
“I screamed for my husband,” she added. “I was terrified.”
Lees-Rolfe rushed James into another room and checked his wounds, and was relieved to see there was no inflammation around the bite, she recalled to the Boston Globe.
“He has no signs of any kind of poison — his bite had zero inflammation,” Lees-Rolfe told CBS affiliate WBZ-TV.
The couple managed to capture the snake and place it in a trash bag, transfer the reptile to a container, and bring it to an expert, who recognized the animal as a female milk snake.
Animal control believed the snake entered the home through the garage and then made its way to the kitchen through a series of pipes, WBZ-TV reported. Fortunately, milk snakes are not venomous, and typically spend much of their time beneath the ground, according to the Virginia Herpetological Society.
Today, James is recovering and was overall “unfazed” by the incident.
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Lees-Rolfe is originally from Australia, which is known for its dangerous wild animals, she told the outlet. But in her 26 years in the country, she never found a snake in her home, until she came to Massachusetts.
“The irony is just really funny at the end of the day,” she said.
