Lauren writes:

We know this girl Shannon who flies sailplanes, because she also
flies hang gliders. Anyhow, Shannon was being towed down the runway in her
sailplane at Seminole and had mustered just about enough speed to get air borne.
At exactly that moment, a Pigmy Rattle Snake crawled out of her radio console,
right in front of her.


For those of you who have never been in a sailplane, they are cozy affairs, with
only enough room to pass gas in a pinch. Thinking quickly, Shannon reached
forward to release herself from tow, so she could stop and scramble out of the
plane. But the snake struck at her hand every time she reached forward. Pigmies
are poisonous, though no one in Florida has actually croaked as a result of
being bitten by one -- mainly victims just get very ill.


Well. You only have a few seconds from the moment when you begin to roll down
the runway to release if you don't want to get air borne. If you reach a couple
hundred feet, you can turn around and fly back to the runway, but if you release
when you are perhaps 50 feet in the air, this is a sort-of no-man's-land, where
the only option is to fly straight ahead and crash into the trees. Shannon
quickly passed the point where she could have safely released and decided she'd
better concentrate on flying her plane unless she wanted for someone to have to
pick her remains from the swamp a little later in the afternoon.


Since she was air borne, she needed to get a little altitude to try and figure
out what to do, so she towed as well as she could. In the meantime, the snake
slithered onto the floor, where he decided that her leg was similar to an
inviting tree-trunk. She firmly closed the leg of her jeans with one hand and
flew with the other.


Finding this avenue closed, Mr. Snake settled into one of the pouches on
Shannon's left. She quickly pinched the top of it closed with one hand. She
choose that moment to release from tow, hoping the snake was napping. She did
get off tow, but the snake escaped again. At least she could -- at least briefly
-- use both hands.


When the snake crawled in front of her a second time, she waved the fingers of
one hand in front of it to distract it, and grabbed its neck with the other
hand. Then, she tossed it out the vent window, watching it fall to the earth, where
it hopefully did not land on some innocent farmer plowing his field or a mother
nursing her child.