A Woman’s Chilling Encounter With A North Dakota Rattler

I've seen several posts on my social media lately saying that snakes are starting to get active.

And we are not talking about the cute Garter snake variety either. We actually have two different varieties of those types of snakes in North Dakota. Of course, Garter snakes are harmless, but we have one species of snake that could ruin your day.

I'm speaking of the Prairie Rattlesnake, which is our only poisonous snake we have in North Dakota.

Prairie Rattlesnakes are expanding their range east of the Missouri River in North Dakota. This is well documented. Especially down in Emmons County, south of Burleigh. I've heard stories from landowners down by Linton and even Hazelton who all have Prairie Rattlesnake stories.

(SEE ALSO: Rattlesnakes are expanding their range east of the Missouri River.)

I received a call on the studio line yesterday from a woman with a very chilling tale of a rattlesnake encounter.

This very scary encounter, and it happened West River near the town of Elgin, North Dakota.

This woman lives with her husband, and they farm and ranch north of the city. Their farm is situated along a creek, and they have had frequent rattlesnake encounters over the years, but nothing like what I'm about to tell you.

Before we get into what happened, here are all the different kinds of snakes you could run into in North Dakota.

Getting back to this woman's scary snake story.

It's something straight out of a horror movie. She got into her pickup truck this past weekend to run into town. It was early in the morning and still pretty dark outside. After she turned the key, she noticed the all-too-familiar rattle sound.

Her first instinct was to get out of the truck immediately. As it turns out, that was a very good call. After screaming for her husband to grab a flashlight and doing some careful examination, the Prairie Rattlesnake was coiled up under the crew cab seat of the truck.

She told me they have no idea how this could ever happen. It's a newer truck, and as far as they know, there's no way a snake could crawl into the inside of this truck, but somehow it did.

At this point in our conversation, I said, "Pictures or it didn't happen".

She laughed and told me it was still dark, and she thought about trying to get a shot of the unwelcome visitor to her vehicle, but it was just too dark, and she feared for her safety.

They left the back door of the truck open, and they are not exactly sure when the serpent exited the vehicle, but by sunrise, the snake was gone.

No doubt, this is a story she will be telling for a long time. How about you? Do you have a rattlesnake story to share with me? Call me weekdays after 3 pm on US 103-3 at 7016631033. I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, watch out for snakes in your vehicle.