A 7-foot-long boa constrictor was the last thing this mother expected to find when her daughter said the washing machine was making a weird noise.
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Shirley Oliveira, a 46-year-old mother of two from Salvador, Brazil, said she came running when her 18-year-old daughter Amanda asked her to check the appliance.
And what she found was nothing short of horrifying: A 17-pound boa constrictor, curled around the bottom of the drum
“When I opened the lid, I got the fright of my life because there was a snake wrapped around the drum with its head poking out,” Oliveria told Caters News. “I was so scared because I could see the snake was huge. Its body was thick and muscular. I was terrified it might be dangerous.”
She said she immediately called the authorities, but when they said they couldn’t come until the following day, a neighbor’s friend took matters into his own hands.
Joao Paulo Ribeiro, who owns a snake himself and knew the tan boa constrictor was not deadly, was captured on video reaching into the washing machine, and removing the snake with his bare hands.
“It was really wedged in and it was hard to lift out,” Ribeiro said. “It took me over 20 minutes to remove it and it was a struggle right until the end.”
Ribeiro said the species is common in their region, and despite sometimes growing up to 13-feet-long and weighing more than 100 pounds, the boa constrictor is not poisonous and poses no threat to humans.
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The male snake was reportedly in good health when it was removed from the washing machine and was released into the wild following the rescue.
“I’m just grateful everything worked out well in the end for us and the animal, which was probably just as frightened as we were,” Oliveria said.