A woman was cutting the grass in her yard when, without warning, a snake fell on her from the sky. She was not standing under a tree, and while she was still wondering where the snake had come from, a hawk suddenly attacked. With the snake coiled round her arm on one side and the bird pecking, biting and clawing at her to snatch it back on the other, the woman was badly injured and had to go to hospital. The incident happened recently in Texas in the United States.

The woman has been named as Peggy Jones, who lives in the town of Silsbee in Texas. The hawk dropped the snake on her on 25 July.

"I was trying to fling the snake off, but it wrapped itself around my arm," Peggy said. "The snake was trying to strike at my face. It bit my glasses several times."

The 64-year-old was standing under open sky at the time, so she realised the snake had probably been dropped by a bird. Proving her right, a hawk flew straight in and began to attack.

"The hawk grabbed the snake wrapped round my arm and pulled at it as if it wanted to carry it off," Peggy said. "Along with the snake, the bird was lifting my arm too."

Despite much tugging, the bird could not free the snake from her arm, and in trying to get its prey back it struck her arm again and again with its sharp talons. In the end the snake was pulled away from her arm, but she then had to rush to hospital.

Peggy said she had serious wounds on her arm, including cuts, abrasions and scratches, and that her glasses were damaged by the snake's strikes.

She said the experience was terrifying; at the time she thought she might die. She has had trouble sleeping ever since.

Citing the BBC.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.