A man who went to a supermarket to get some groceries came back with a snake and didn’t realize it until after the animal got familiar with his foods.
Last month, 63-year-old Neville Linton bought a bag of broccoli from an Aldi branch in Stourbridge, England, and stored it in his fridge before taking it out to prepare a meal three days later.
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But when he took the broccoli out and unwrapped it, the man immediately saw the unexpected guest.
A snake that was exploring a broccoli field somewhere in southwestern Europe got packed up and shipped to a British supermarket
Image credits: DTNNEWUpdates
Without suspecting, Neville Linton, 63, picked it up together with a bag of vegetables and took the reptile home
Image credits: Önder Örtel (not the actual photo)
Neville, who works in industrial cleaning, couldn’t believe his eyes.
“It was pretty frightening. I’m not good with snakes,” he said. “It’s lucky I didn’t just leave the broccoli out in the kitchen, or it would have been loose in the house.”
“That would have been a huge risk for us because we have two vulnerable people living here.”
Once he realized the creature was too big to be a caterpillar, he called his sister Ann-Marie Tenkanemin for help and she identified it as a snake.
It was a ladder snake
Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)
Although the species is nonvenomous, these guys are quite aggressive and defensive by nature
Image credits: Mike Mozart
The pair popped it in a tub and went back to the Aldi store on Dudley Road where Neville made the purchase.
“I thought she was joking at first, but I backed off when I saw it start moving. The guy in the shop was pretty frightened too,” he said.
The snake was taken to Dudley Zoo where experts took a look at it and determined it was, in fact, a young ladder snake.
The animal was taken to a nearby zoo
Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)
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And Neville is trying to get compensated for having to go through all of this
Image credits: Michael Burrows (not the actual photo)
Neville has been offered compensation but is trying to get more.
The father-of-three said the amount he heard didn’t sound fair because of the risk to his disabled son and vulnerable mother-in-law, who live under the same roof.
“It’s just not good enough,” he added. “The implications for us if it had got out in the house are huge. Plus, I’m phobic of snakes so there’s the emotional impact of that too.”
An Aldi spokesperson reported: “Our supplier has never had a complaint of this nature and has robust processes in place to prevent such issues occurring.”
“We are investigating this isolated incident and have apologized to Mr. Linton that our usual high standards were not met.”
Ladder snakes mostly live in Portugal, Spain, southern France, and parts of Italy.
They like scrub bushy cover, including orchards, vineyards, hedges, and overgrown dry-stone walls. Habitats with stones and boulders and low shade are usually their favorites.
Ladder snakes aren’t venomous, however, they are aggressive and defensive in their nature. Any attempt to pick one up may be greeted by sharp bites and also the emptying of the cloacal glands, releasing an offensive odor.
After the local news picked up the story, people had all sorts of reactions
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