Published: Thursday, 14th January, 2010 2:00pm
Shop worker finds escaped snake
by Lorraine Tinney
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A GREENOCK shop worker got the fright of her life after coming face-to-face with a six-foot SNAKE.
The bull snake escaped from an exotic pet shop next door and slithered into the blinds retailer, where the woman was working.
The terrified sales assistant was making up a delivery in the store room in Window Blind Design when she noticed something stir at her feet.
The shocked woman, who doesn't want to be named, said: "I was making up a blind in the back shop. I moved a roll of polythene and I saw something move at my feet.
"It was brown and yellow and about six-foot long - I don't know how long it had been there. I was shaking like a leaf.
"It was coiled up at the start, then it tried to stretch itself out. I ran out the shop and into the hairdressers next door."
The snake, like the one pictured, had escaped from its box in the Pro-Exotics pet shop in Sir Michael Street, Greenock, around 1pm on Tuesday.
The creepy critter crawled into a cardboard tube and was contained by blocking each end.
Police were called to the shop and alerted Abbey Vets, whose staff placed the tube into a mailsack and took it back to the surgery until the owner collected the creature.
The woman said: "There were three police cars outside. I thought people would think the shop was getting raided.
"The police officers' faces were whiter than mine. I didn't think it was funny at the time but I can laugh about it now."
William Euart, pictured, who owns Pro-Exotics, managed to shed some light on the animal's crate escape.
He said: "Someone handed in the snake in the box to get it re-homed a couple of days ago and it got out of the box.
"I was concerned but it is a totally inoffensive animal. It wouldn't do anyone any harm - I've taken it home."
Vet Neil McIntosh, a partner at Abbey Vets, confirmed the snake was six feet long and the width of a hand.
He said: "The owner of the shop keeps getting dumped with such pets because people don't know how to look after them.
"Bull snakes are constrictors, like pythons, and eat small mammals such as mice and rats, but they're not poisonous."
