Of all the surprises you can expect when buying a used car, a four-foot-long snake isn’t one of them.
But that’s exactly what Ray Khan of Langley, B.C. discovered Monday morning after hopping into his recently-purchased Volvo S60 to head to work.
Before he even noticed the scaly reptile, Khan said he sat down, turned on the ignition and beckoned his wife to join him.
“My wife just about ended up having a heart attack when she opened the door and all of a sudden there was a snake sitting on the floor,” Khan said.
“I’m sitting there, like, ‘Get in!’”
The couple purchased the car earlier this month from Jim Pattison Volvo in North Vancouver, and said they can’t imagine how it got inside.
“The car’s all sealed,” Khan said. “I’ve been driving around the last 10 days with a snake in there.”
Khan tried to get the snake out of the car using a stick, but the reptile slithered back into the dashboard and out of sight.
His stunned wife refused to get inside, instead calling her niece to pick her up, but Khan eventually bit the bullet and got back behind the wheel.
“Gotta get to work,” he said.
The couple called the dealership, which then got in touch with Mike Hopcraft, owner of The Reptile Guy rescue in Abbotsford. He quickly confirmed the existence of a snake based on shedded skin inside the vehicle.
Hopcraft, who said he’s never seen a case like it before, decided to try to coax the animal out rather than pull the car apart.
“We can put the space heater in the car, leave it there for a few minutes, see if the heat entices the snake to come out,” he said.
Despite taking hours rather than minutes, a ball python eventually emerged in front of the passenger seat.
The nocturnal snake is non-lethal, but Hopcraft said it could still cause a dangerous distraction if discovered mid-trip.
“You don’t want it popping out when you’re driving down the road,” he said.
There’s no way to know how the snake ended up inside the car, but the dealership has still decided to offer the couple a full detailing for free.
