Sandi Whitaker was walking with her two daughters in a New Palestine nature park Sunday when they saw a large snake in a tree.
As she filmed a video of the reptile, a woman can be heard saying "Big, freaking snake. I'm outta here," WRTV reported.
"Where's a stick?" another person asks.
"Don't you dare," the first woman retorts.
"We went around the bend and there was the snake just hanging from the tree," Whitaker told WTHR. "One of my other daughters wanted to get a stick because she wanted to bring it home to her dad and I was like, ‘No we're not.’”
"I wasn't scared, but I was just kind of surprised because it was so long and so big and we had never seen anything like that here," Whitaker's daughter, Kelli, told WTHR.
The video was sent to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and the bureau identified it as a gray ratsnake, which is found across most of the state.
"I think it was probably about 6 feet long, I mean, it was, it's tall. It's taller than me. I'm 5-10,” Kelli Whitaker said.
A bite from a ratsnake isn't poisonous, but they are constrictors and popular with farmers because they eat rodents.
"I really don't know anything about snakes except that I don't want to be around them," Sandi Whitaker told WHTR. On Facebook she wrote “The DNR says -- harmless black rat snake! Unless you’re a rat!”
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