(Newer)
– Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm wriggling in plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought from a supermarket in Sydney – until a snake’s tongue flashed. “I kind of panicked,” White recalls, according to the AP. It was a poisonous, bleach-headed snake that, authorities say, made a 540-mile journey to Sydney, Australia, packed from a packaging plant in the Australian city of Toowoomba. in plastic with two heads of lettuce. The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded boy to sleep until White bought the lettuce at an ALDI supermarket Monday night and rode home by bike with salad and hose in his backpack.
White and his partner Amelia Neate saw the snake move as soon as the lettuce was unpacked on the kitchen table. They also noticed that the plastic wrap was torn and that the snake could escape, so they quickly put the reptile with the lettuce in a plastic food container. White called the rescue organization WIRES and a snake handler took the snake away that night. Before the attendant arrived, White said WIRES explained to him, “If you get bitten, you have to get to the hospital very quickly.” ALDI is investigating how a snake could have ended up in a supermarket.
(Read more stories about snakes.)