Snake salad: Australian man ‘freaked out’ after finding 20cm reptile in lettuce bought at supermarket
- Alex White was unpacking his shopping at home in Sydney when he noticed the snake inside the package of cos lettuce
- It was a venomous pale-headed snake that authorities say made an 870km journey to Sydney from a packing plant in the Australian city of Toowoomba
Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought home from a Sydney supermarket – until a snake tongue flicked.
“I kind of completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its mouth and start flicking around and realised it was a snake because worms don’t have tongues,” White said on Thursday. “I definitely kind of panicked a bit.”
It was a venomous pale-headed snake that authorities say made an 870km journey to Sydney from a packing plant in the Australian city of Toowoomba wrapped in plastic with two heads of cos lettuce.
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The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded juvenile into a stupor until White bought the lettuce at an Aldi supermarket on Monday evening and rode his bicycle home with salad and snake in his backpack.
White and his partner Amelia Neate spotted the snake moving as soon as the lettuce was unpacked onto the kitchen table.
They also noticed the plastic wrapping was torn and that the snake could escape, so they quickly stuffed the reptile with the lettuce into a plastic food storage container.
White phoned the WIRES rescue organisation and a snake handler took the snake away that night.
Before the handler arrived, White said WIRES had explained to him: “If you get bitten, you’ve got to go to hospital really quickly.”