Footage shows a woman’s incredibly calm reaction to a highly venomous snake interrupting her cigarette break, simply saying she knew remaining chilled was the ‘safest’ thing to do.
The clip was posted on Facebook by Harrison’s Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher, a company founded by reptile specialist Tony Harrison.
The video shows an eastern brown snake slithering up to a woman smoking a cigarette – who turns out to be 24-year-old Ayla Manson, one of Harrison’s employees.
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She had just removed the animal from a home in Tamborine, Queensland, where it was hiding underneath a fridge, and relocated it into the bush before sitting down for a break.
The Facebook post said: “The stigma around snakes being aggressive or violent has sadly taken over most people’s perception.
“This is a fantastic example that they don't want to hurt us and the only reason they do attack is they're scared of something significantly larger than them the bite is only to say back off!
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“They are an innocent animal which just wants to go along its day without interference.”
As the snake came writhing back towards Manson, she didn't exactly seem to love the situation she was in, but casually carried on smoking.
“Yeah I think it’s onto me, it’s moving onto my pants,” she can be heard saying in the video, later adding: “I don’t like that."
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When someone else says it’s ‘sniffing your butt’, Manson quipped: “I felt that."
The company later said it wanted to share the video to educate others about what to do if approached by a snake.
Manson told the Herald Sun: "We already knew the personality of the snake was chill that day.
"I knew in that moment, the safest thing was to stay still.
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"Had I panicked and gotten up, it would have tried to defend itself and I would have been at risk of a bite."
Her co-worker Brooke Harrison said the company had been criticised for posting the video online, saying some viewers believed it could inspire curious children to head out looking for snakes.
But she said: “We posted it because we want people to learn from this.
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“The reality is, people in Australia will come across a snake in their life and if they don’t know how to handle it, things will go wrong.
“Here in Queensland, we do have a lot more species of snakes, and we do snake releases every single day.
“We want everyone, kids and adults, to see this so they know how to handle a situation like this.
“The approach should always be don’t move and stay calm, because if we move too fast, we might scare it and face a bite.”
Jess Hardiman