Rattlesnake in a bottle? The tough part was getting it out, Arizona rescuer says
Arizona’s desert rattlesnakes are notorious for getting in predicaments, but it was something new when a professional snake catcher had to rescue one from a bottle.
It happened at a home in North Phoenix, and a child made the discovery after hearing that unmistakable rattling in the family’s garden.
The very strange call for help came around 10 p.m., and Tim Agnello of Rattlesnake Solutions admits the sight was odd, even for a man who has spent 50 years chasing snakes.
“It was a 2-foot western diamondback, and it was stuck half in and half out of this bottle that was part of the irrigation system,” Agnello told McClatchy News.
“Who knows how long it had been stuck. My reaction? ‘How the heck did you get yourself in there?’ The bottle had to be secured to something for the snake to push its way into it. We’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff on calls, but this was a good one.”
The rattlesnake was essentially dragging the bottle along with it and would have eventually died of starvation, Agnello says.
It was also in a feisty mood, as it was unable to coil and strike in its own defense, he said.
Rattlesnake Solutions is in the business of saving rattlesnakes, so Agnello committed himself to carrying it back to his home for a very odd rescue operation.
It required his wife, Wendy, to help, because someone had to keep the biting end occupied while Agnello worked on the bottle.
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“We had two sets of hands and Wendy got oil and lubed up the snake. We tried to pull it out of the bottle, but it was too stuck,” he said.
“We recognized that we needed to cut it off. We put the head in a tube (to keep it from biting) and I began to cut the bottle off with scissors, doing tiny cuts to keep from injuring the snake.”
It took about five minutes and the snake was too tired to fight. There were no signs of injury from the bottle, he said.
The next morning, Agnello put the well-watered snake in a bucket and returned it to a desert creek bed not far from where it was found.
“While I was there, I saw another rattlesnake coiled up not 5 feet away, so I knew I was in a good spot,” he says.
Western diamondbacks can reach about 5 feet in Arizona, but some as long as 7 feet have been found, according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 8:03 AM with the headline "Rattlesnake in a bottle? The tough part was getting it out, Arizona rescuer says."