Monica Dorsett of Venice, Fla., was driving down the road when she noticed the serpent slithering out of the vent near her hand.
"It took me a second to realize — that is real," she told Buzzfeed.
Dorsett was in the middle of traffic but saw an opening. "I did a right turn over two lanes into a parking lot, slammed it in reverse, undid my belt and rolled out of the car as fast as I could," Dorsett told a Fox TV affiliate.
She called her husband as the snake made himself at home on the dashboard. Dorsett managed to snap photos as the snake started to exit the car - and, she said, she also accidentally recorded herself screaming. Her daughter posted the photos on social media with the caption, "My mom almost crashed her car today cause a snake started coming out of her vents while she was driving."
Dorsett is an animal lover, but as the snake seemed to doubling back to reenter the car, she panicked and slammed the door on it. When her husband showed up, he killed the injured snake. She believes the snake got into the ventilation system from beneath the hood.
Dorsett now keeps her vents closed. "I'm not opening those vents for a long time," she said.
Her daughter Kristina sums it up: "Florida is just weird."
