Large rattlesnake found lounging on front porch of Florida home, leading to standoff

Finding a rattlesnake on your welcome mat surely qualifies as ironic.

It happened this week to a homeowner in Martin County, Florida, and video shows the snake was perfectly poised to greet anyone stepping outside the front door. The home is in the Summerfield community, about 105 miles north of Miami.

Three Martin County Animal Services officers responded and were clearly intimidated. The snake was identified as a 4-foot-long diamondback rattlesnake, a venomous reptile that experts say is “very dangerous to people and pets.”

It did not want to leave the porch and fought back, the video shows. The snake recoiled from the tongs, squirmed to get free, and knocked over the bucket intended to contain it.

Two of the officers teamed up on the lawn and wrestled the snake into submission — after it tried biting their tongs a few times.

The three officers, identified as Kim Guile, Tabitha Queen, and Amanda Heffron, stayed as far away from the snake as the tongs would allow.

“Warriors do carry snake sticks. It was a slithery, heart pumping situation, but clearly no match for (our) Animal Services Team,” the Martin County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook. “The creature was safely released in an less populated area.”

Details of how the homeowner discovered the snake were not revealed, but station WPBF reports Patty Kothe got a call from a neighbor telling her the snake was at her front door.

“And I said OK, figuring I’ll never leave my front door again,” Kothe told the station. “He did not go happily.”

Diamondback rattlesnakes are “heavy-bodied” and grow to as big as 6 feet in the state, according to the Florida Museum.

Anyone bitten by the snakes “should seek immediate medical care from a physician or hospital,” the museum says.

This story was originally published April 19, 2022 at 7:42 AM with the headline "Large rattlesnake found lounging on front porch of Florida home, leading to standoff."