A woman driving along Route 2 near Foxwoods resort casino on Tuesday afternoon got an unwelcome passenger in her car: a large snake loose inside the vehicle. A state trooper from Troop E in Montville, Trooper First Class Charles Workman, pulled over and wrangled it out.
The woman called police for help, and Workman was able to remove the unwanted hitchhiker from the caller's car despite, as state police put it, the slippery nature of the accused. The brief roadside rescue was unusual even by police standards, and it quickly turned into the kind of incident people cannot help sharing.
By Wednesday morning, Troop E's Facebook post about the encounter had drawn more than 300 comments, a sign that a snake in a car on a busy highway can still stop people midscroll. State police said troopers at Troop E never know what kind of call is coming next, and this one came with a live reptile and no clear explanation.
That explanation is still missing. Some Facebook commenters identified the snake as a non-venomous Eastern Rat Snake, but state police said the snake remained unidentified. The spokesman also said it is unknown how the snake got into the vehicle in the first place.
For Workman, the job was simple: get the snake out and get the driver back on the road. For everyone else, the unanswered question is how a large snake ended up loose in a car on Route 2 near Foxwoods in the first place.
