A Texas woman suffered bloody injuries in an attack by two very different animals – a snake that fell out of the sky onto her arm and a hawk that swooped down to retrieve its prey.
Peggy Jones, 64, was on her tractor mowing her lawn in Silsbee on July 25 when the snake landed on her arm and wrapped itself around it like a miniature boa constrictor, KPRC reported.
“The snake was squeezing so hard and I was waving my arms in the air,” she told the outlet.
“And then, this hawk was swooping down clawing at my arm over and over. I just kept saying, ‘Help me, Jesus! Help me, Jesus!’” Jones added.
She said the brown-and-white hawk landed on her at least four times in its frenzied attempts to recapture the snake that it apparently dropped moments earlier.
In seconds, her entire right arm was left bloodied — with deep gashes from the bird’s flesh-tearing talons – before it finally ripped the snake away and flew off.
Peggy Jones suffered bloody injuries in an attack by a snake and a hawk. KFDM
Jones said her husband, Wendell, 66, came running when he heard her cries and saw her running toward him wildly as blood dripped from her arm, the Washington Post reported.
“I was yelling and screaming. He didn’t know what I was saying. I thought I was bit by a snake,” she told KPRC.
Wendell put her in their Dodge Ram pickup and raced to a nearby hospital, where doctors cleaned out her puncture wounds, bandaged her arm, and prescribed antibiotics, according to the Washington Post.
The 64-year-old Texas woman was on her tractor mowing her lawn when the snake landed on her arm and wrapped itself around it like a miniature boa constrictor, according to reports. Click2Houston
Jones said she suffered no bites by the serpent – just bruising from it clinging to her for dear life.
But she apparently narrowly avoided a worse fate than claw cuts.
“I discovered the lens on my glasses was broken and there was snake venom on my glasses,” Jones told KPRC.
Jones said the hawk landed on her at least four times in its frenzied attempts to capture the snake it apparently dropped moments before. Click2Houston
She said she was told she must be the unluckiest person alive to have suffered a simultaneous attack by a hawk and an apparently poisonous snake.
But she begged to differ.
“I feel like the luckiest person alive to have survived this!” Jones exclaimed.
Remarkably, this was not her first violent encounter with a snake.
She was bitten by a venomous one a few years ago – and obviously survived that as well.
Jones’s husband, Wendell took her to a nearby hospital, where doctors cleaned out her puncture wounds and prescribed antibiotics, according to reports. Click2Houston
Bryan Hughes, the owner of Rattlesnake Solutions, said the hawk had likely fumbled the snake and dropped its quarry on Jones while flying away.
“It fell on the woman and hung onto her because this was a panicked, injured animal,” Hughes told Insider. “Then the bird swept down to finish what it started.”
He told the outlet that the serpent may have been a rat snake that can escape the grasp of a hawk.
“This is not something that people need to start worrying about,” Hughes added. “It is such a freak incident.”
Meanwhile, Jones has already jumped back on her tractor — but asked her hubby to walk beside her on the first ride back just to keep an eye out for flying snakes, according to KPRC.
