AMHERST, Va. – A 911 call to Early Drive last Tuesday had most of Amherst County’s first responders rushing to the scene for what ended up to be a snake slithering up someone’s window.
“I had my daughter sitting on the porch. My baby,” said one man.
The original call was for a pipe bomb, hence the huge police and medic response.
“10-4, It’s a python not a pipe bomb,” Deputy Reginald Olivier relayed back to dispatch. “There was some miscommunication between the person reporting it and who took the call.”
Olivier was first on scene and certainly relieved by what he found.
“I’d rather deal with a boa constrictor than a pipe bomb,” Olivier said.
The Sheriff’s Office posted about the incident on Facebook, which reached thousands of people.
Qutin Childs is the owner of the boa constrictor named Mona.
“I knew eventually he was going to end up dying and I didn’t want him to die in my home,” Childs said.
Childs was desperate that his pet of two years had not eaten, drank water nor shed in three months.
He let it go in the woods behind his home, but then Mona did the unthinkable.
“I saw one of the paramedics holding my snake. And I realized he came back after two days,” Childs said. “I mean snakes don’t do that. Dogs and cats, they do that when you release them, they find their way back home. But a snake... that was really different.”
Deputies say the 6 ½ foot, 40-pound boa looked really sick.
“It had some sort of fungus around its mouth because you couldn’t see its teeth. It almost looked like it was webbed shut with fungus, which might have been why the snake wasn’t eating,” Olivier said.
Childs said he had no clue what was wrong. He has since signed his rights over to the county and offers this lesson to any snake owner.
“Call the game warden. Let them come get them,” Childs said.
10 News checked with the Amherst Humane Society to see who has the snake.
Our crews weren’t allowed to see but were told a veterinarian is taking of it with antibiotics. They hope to have it ready for adoption soon.