DAILY RECORD (York, Pennsylvania) 16 September 06 York traffic slows to a crawl as snake slithers by

Thursday, a 6-foot-long snake curled into the shelter of a parked car's chassis. By Friday, it found a new home.

York City Police Sgt. Nicholas Figge wondered why traffic was backing up at Continental Square just after 2 p.m. Thursday.

He then noticed a man anxiously waving him down.

The man told Figge a nearly 6-foot-long snake was in the travel lane in the first block of South George Street, striking with its fangs at vehicles as they passed by.

By the time Figge parked his police cruiser, the snake slithered to the curb and under Sal Volo's car.

Volo noticed the flashing police lights behind his red Nissan and ran out of Marcello's Restaurant, where he works.

Volo said he didn't believe a snake was loose downtown until he bent down and saw the snake coiled around his vehicle's chassis, near the rear tire and gas tank.

Not big fans of snakes, Volo and Figge waited for Mark McCartney, the city's animal enforcement officer.

"I'm not touching it. I'm not afraid of snakes, but I'm not a snake guy," Volo said.

McCartney grabbed a pair of garden gloves and a pillowcase from his home and headed for George Street. Looking over the situation, he realized it would be impossible to get the snake without removing Volo's tire.

As Volo jacked up his car and removed the tire, McCartney determined if the snake was dangerous or deadly. By its looks, he determined the coiled reptile was a python, most likely a Burmese, probably someone's pet that squirmed away.

For the next 20 minutes in a steady rain, McCartney struggled to unravel the snake from the car's underbody.

"It was not comfortable coming out. It was sort of a tug of war. It was wrapped around everything," McCartney said.

Once out, McCartney took the snake to the Susquehanna Stray Animal Shelter in Red Lion. Roxanne Smeltzer, the shelter's manager, called a man known to find snakes a good home. Based on a quick - and distant - review, she figures the snake was a well-kept boa constrictor or python. By Friday morning, the snake was off to a new home.

"We don't keep them here. We're not big fans of snakes," Smeltzer said.

Figge said he was glad to hear the snake had a new home and offered a few words of advice. "Hopefully, the new owners will keep it inside," he said.

To McCartney, the snake was just another loose critter in the city. He captured a snake in one of the city's parking garages earlier this month. His resume includes opossums, skunks, raccoons and groundhogs.

McCartney even had to help lasso an emu that escaped a carrying trailer near Route 30 as it was being taken to slaughter. "It's always something," he said.
York traffic slows to a crawl as snake slithers by

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• PA Press: York traffic slows to a crawl - W von Papineäu, Sun Sep 17 21:28:09 2006