A 27-year old man from Queensland ended up in quite a predicament as he discovered that he was sharing his vehicle with a brown snake while driving down the Dawson Highway, ABC News reports.
As the driver later told cops, he was "driving at 100 kilometres an hour" and "started to brake" when he detected the snake's presence.
"And the more I moved my legs … it just started to wrap around me”, he said. "Its head started to strike at the seat and between my legs."
Using a seat belt and a work knife to battle the creature while bringing his car to a stop, the driver managed to kill the snake, and then drove at high speed to the nearest hospital as he feared that he had been bitten.
When police officers spotted his car doing 123 kilometers per hour and pulled him over, the man explained the situation to them, asking them to "feel" his heart.
Fortunately, the paramedics who arrived on a subsequently called ambulance have established that the man wasn't bitten but was merely suffering from shock.
University of Queensland snake expert Associate Professor Bryan Fry, however, noted that the driver had a good reason to "freak out", the media outlet points out.
"Brown snakes have unusually fast-acting venom and can kill within 15 minutes", he said.