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VENICE, Fla. – A Florida woman somehow managed not to crash after looking down to find a snake slithering out of her SUV’s air-conditioning vent.

Monica Dorsett told WTVT she was in the middle of traffic when she turned on the cold air, glanced down and saw a red rat snake emerging from the vent, inches from her left hand.

“I looked and I didn’t see anybody in (the passenger side) mirror so I did a right turn over two lanes into a parking lot,” Dorsett said.

Dorsett was filming as the creature made its way out of the door, but when she tapped on the dashboard to keep it moving the snake turned around and tried to go back into her vehicle. “That’s when I really freaked out,” Dorsett said. A self-proclaimed animal lover, Dorsett admitted that she panicked and slammed the door on the animal, leaving it hanging halfway out.

She called her husband for help, but by the time he got there the snake was clearly injured. Dorsett’s husband decided to “euthanize” the snake, she said.

Dorsett said she’s worried the snake might have left eggs in the air-conditioning line, and joked that she won’t be opening the vents until the heat is in the 90s.

Dorsett’s daughter posted photos of the snake on Twitter, writing, “My mom almost crashed her car today cause a snake started coming out of her vents while she was driving.”

These were some of the reactions:

https://twitter.com/TiaNakole/status/840604193316622337