Note: This story has been updated.
EVANSVILLE – There’s a snake in your truck, the U-Haul employee said.
At first Andi Waters was like bull. How often do you pick up a moving van and find a snake waiting inside? If anything, it would be nothing more than a small, garden-sized reptile.
Still, she saw how scared the employee looked – “white as a ghost,” she said – so she ventured inside the U-Haul office on the South Side of Evansville Sunday and found an umbrella. She figured she’d hook the thing free and watch it scurry away.
Then she heard her husband scream.
“I’ll never forget the sound,” she said Tuesday, barely getting out the words as she laughed. “He said, it is not a small snake!”
Curled up under the passenger seat of their U-Haul was a massive tan-and-black snake that Waters said was at least seven feet long. In videos she posted to TikTok and Facebook over the weekend, you can see its huge body piled on top of itself like thick copper wire. She didn’t even know how it could fit under there.
They called Evansville Animal Control, but it was closed. And with temperatures inside the truck flirting with 120 degrees, they knew they had no choice. For the sake of the animal, they had to get the snake out themselves.
What came next were some of the most memorable minutes of her and her husband, Shaun’s life – and nothing like they expected when they agreed to help Andi’s sister move to a new apartment.
Thanks to a lot of bravery and a plastic tote with a lid, they were able to extract the snake safely and hand it over to an animal control officer who came to the scene after they called dispatch.
According to Todd Robertson – Evansville’s department of transportation director who also oversees animal control – the snake belonged to the family that had previously rented the truck. By Tuesday, they had taken their pet home.
“They were actually looking for it and grateful that we called them,” he said. “Because they didn’t know exactly what happened.”
Andi called that “wonderful news.”
“I hope he or she can go live a happy snake life,” she said.
'Get the bucket! Get the bucket!'
That storybook ending wasn’t guaranteed on Sunday.
Andi first approached the truck with the umbrella and a small bucket. But when she saw the size of the thing, she knew that wouldn’t work, so the employee snagged a large plastic tote: the kind you’d use to store blankets in the garage.
After that, Andi said the employee went inside.
U-Haul didn't respond to a request for comment until several days after this story initially published. In a statement, the company confirmed the incident and said the employee found the snake after a "standard, thorough inspection." They told the Waters' and provided them with a different truck, but Andi and Shaun chose to get the snake out safely before taking them up on the offer.
U-Haul praised the employee for handling an "unusual situation," and for reuniting the snake with its family.
"The local U-Haul team has chosen to reimburse the helpful customers half of their one-way rental costs due to their willingness to assist and the slight delay they endured," the statement reads in part.
Back at the truck that day, dispatchers said they could send an animal control officer to the scene, but he’d have to get his truck and gas up first.
That left them with a difficult decision. Although herpetological societies warn against handing snakes at all – especially if they could be venomous or bite-prone – they can also overheat and die in extreme temperatures. And the boiling conditions on Sunday certainly qualified.
“So I’m in there trying to hook this snake like an idiot,” she said. “We finally get to the point where we realize we’re not gonna be able to hook it out with this umbrella. We’re just gonna have to grab it.”
Since Andi was already in the cab, she took the first crack at it. In a Facebook Live video she posted on Sunday, you can see the snake retreat to the far corner of the passenger side and curl behind what looks like a red toolbox.
“This is dumb,” Andi says, reaching her hand down. “Hi baby.”
She eventually grabbed it around the midsection. It yanked back a bit, and the power of its pull made her realize she wasn’t strong enough to complete the mission. Shaun would have to do it.
But there was a problem: “My husband is terrified of snakes,” Andi said.
He forged ahead regardless, and “with a minimal amount of screaming” they were able to pull it out of the cab.
“Then this thing just unfurls," Andi said. "It's just foot after foot after foot of snake. It hits the ground from the inside of the bed from where he’s holding it up at his chest, and he’s like get the bucket! Get the bucket!”
Simultaneously rushing and moving carefully, he dropped the snake inside the tote and Andi snapped on the lid.
And that’s when animal control showed up. Apparently someone hadn’t conveyed the size of the snake, because the officer arrived with an empty kitty litter container and a grabber so small it reminded Andi of those dinosaur-headed ones she played with as a kid.
Still, they were able to give the snake some water. She said it stayed calm until animal control lightly pinched its body to make sure it wasn’t shutting down from dehydration.
“Then the snake hissed. I don’t know if it was because it was in this plastic tub, but it was just this horrible, reverberating growl,” she said. “I swear to God every hair on my head stood up. It’s standing up right now just remembering it.”
Two days later, it was back in a familiar environment. Andi said she’d love to see the snake again. They spent a lot of time together, and she took a liking to it. She even gave it a temporary name: U-Haul.
“I’m very glad we found it before we started driving,” she said. “We could have been in the middle of nowhere and it popped out. That would not have gone so well.”
