Rat Snake Found In Walmart Shopping Cart, Man Bitten While Relocating Reptile

An employee collecting shopping carts from the return area of a Walmart in Cross Roads, Texas, Saturday, was shocked to discover a rat snake entwined between the carts.

The supermarket worker gave a loud scream after finding the reptile, which was heard by an officer of the Northeast Police Department who was patrolling the area in the evening and was standing across the parking lot of the store at the time.

“A cart attendant from Walmart, while collecting carts, found a large rat snake that had worked its way into a group of shopping carts that had been sitting in a return area… Recent heavy rains are forcing a lot of snakes out of their natural habitats, and this goes to show, that they can turn up just about anywhere,” a Facebook post by the department said.

The post contained a number of photos of the snake as well as the man who helped get rid of the reptile. John Heckaman of Savannah, Texas, who “assisted in the relocation of the snake, and was only bit once in the process” was dubbed a “snake charmer” by the police department – a nickname that soon became popular on social media, prompting users to track down Heckaman and bombard him with praises and questions about the incident.

To put the case to rest, Heckaman opened up about the incident in a separate Facebook post of his own. In the post, he wrote that he discovered the snake while fetching some snacks for his eldest son from the local Walmart to take on their road trip. After driving into the parking lot, he saw a police officer and a couple of Walmart employees looking at the shopping carts. On a closer look, he saw the reptile.

“I knew the snake was non venomous so I then asked if they would like for me to remove it, Of course they said yes. As I was trying to untangle the snake it bite me, no big deal. I was finally able to get the snake out, I then walked over to the open field next to the Walmart and released it,” he said.

Then, he said, the police asked for his name and the place he was from. “Next thing I know I’m all over Facebook and then in the news as the ‘Snake Charmer.’ I am in no way a snake specialists or a snake charmer I was just simply offering to help. I didn’t want anyone to kill the snake or anyone to panic and hurt themselves. I would like to thank everyone for the kind comments, but most of all the Northeast Police officer who gave me the ridiculous nickname,” he continued.

The police’s Facebook post has been shared over 1,500 times since it was posted Sunday.

According to University of Texas' Arlington’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center, “The Texas rat snake is one of the most commonly encountered species of non-venomous snake in North Texas and this is especially true for the Dallas Fort Worth area.”