A Melbourne woman's worst nightmare came to life on Sunday, when a snake wound itself around her car's windscreen wipers, as she was driving through the city.
Toni O'Sullivan was driving back to her CBD home after grocery shopping in Albert Park, when a python appeared on the glass in front of her.
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Snake on car shocks Melbourne driver
Python mysteriously appears on windscreen of a woman's car in Albert Park, and another is still at large.
But she didn't notice the snake until she was almost home.
On Sunday afternoon she parked her Volvo Coupe under some trees on Bridport Street and went into the shops for "about 20 minutes".
"I got back into the car and there was nothing untoward. I came over the bridge, past Crown, and I was turning into Flinders Lane," Â Ms O'Sullivan said.
"I looked over to my left and thought I saw some movement out of the side of my eye. I thought maybe it was a leaf, and so I let it go.
"I've then came into the sunlight ... all of a sudden I see this sliding movement on the window, in and out of the wipers.
"I thought f--k me ... Am I seeing correctly? I was in complete disbelief and then adrenalin kicked in and it was either flight or flight."
She was stuck, at the corner of Market Street and Flinders Lane, with a snake staring her down.
What does one do when they are driving in the CBD with a python on their windscreen?
"By now it's coming up the windscreen and it's looking right at me," she said.
"I thought oh Jesus what do I do now, do I go home, do I drive to the zoo?"
"My legs were shaking, my hands were shaking and then I saw some worker's vehicles on Flinders Lane."
Ms O'Sullivan said she beeped her horn at the workers, and "gestured wildly" at them until they came over.
"By now I had tears, I was crying, I put my window down and said 'I'm wondering if you can help me please, I'm absolutely petrified, there's a snake on my car'.
She managed to pull herself together and park the car next to the workers, who had armed themselves with shovels, not knowing what to do with the snake.
A young male worker pulled her quickly from the car and away from the slithery specimen.
Ms O'Sullivan said she called police, Melbourne City Council and the zoo in an effort to deal with the snake.
Council rangers waited with the snake and the workers taped off the area around the car, but it wasn't long until the rogue snake captured an audience.
"We had tourists walking by, it was unbelievable, you just wouldn't believe it," she said.
Barry Goldsmith, from Snake Catcher Victoria, came to the rescue.
He said the snake was not venomous and was probably someone's pet who had escaped, lodged itself in a tree and then fallen on to the Volvo.
"Once I arrived it had wrapped itself nice and tightly around the mirror," Mr Goldsmith said.
"It's not poisonous, not venomous, not dangerous. It's somebody's pet, that's why I'd like to find the owner.
"Pet snakes are sneaky little buggers and they tend to escape from their enclosures, it's just one of those things, they are cheeky."
Mr Goldsmith praised Ms O'Sullivan's actions and said if a person was not sure about what kind of snake they were dealing with, they should always assume it's dangerous.
"In Victoria, if you see a snake there's a 99 per cent chance it will be venomous. So always consider it dangerous and call a snake catcher."
If you're missing a pet python please contact Barry Goldsmith on 0408 067 062