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‘I lived to tell about it’: Woman attacked by a snake that fell from the sky – then a hawk dove in

‘I consider myself to be the luckiest person alive,’ Peggy Jones said

Peggy Jones was working on their garden in Texas when the incident occurred. Photograph: New York Times

Chang Che
Thu Aug 10 2023 - 13:13

One should never get in the way of a hawk and its prey.

Peggy Jones learned that lesson in a most unwitting way on July 25th as she and her husband, Wendell, were finishing a day of work in the garden on their property in Silsbee, Texas, northeast of Houston.

First, in an improbable occurrence, a snake fell from the clear blue sky, wrapping itself tightly around her right forearm.

“I immediately screamed and started swinging my arm to shake the snake off,” Jones (64), said. “I was screaming, ‘Jesus, help me, please, Jesus, help me.’”

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The snake’s grip tightened. It hissed and lunged at her face, at times striking her glasses. But then, Jones realised, the snake, too, was an unwitting victim.

A brown-and-white hawk flying overhead had fumbled and dropped the 4½ ft long serpent. The hawk quickly joined the fracas, swooping down to wrench its dinner from Jones’s arm.

The hawk snatched, scratched and jabbed at her arm “three to four times” to reclaim its meal, she recalled. Each time, its powerful talons slashed her forearm. At one point, the bird dragged Jones’s arm up into the air. On the fourth try, it successfully uncoiled the snake and flew away. The “horrific” ordeal, she said, lasted about 15 to 20 seconds and left her arm scratched, bruised and punctured.

“I looked down at my arm and it was totally covered in blood,” Jones said.

Wendell(66), eventually noticed that his wife was screaming, running in a zigzag pattern and flailing her arms. He promptly helped her into their truck and drove to the hospital. On the way there, he recalled, she was tongue-tied.

“By the time I got to her, she was pretty hysterical,” he said. “It took me probably three minutes to actually understand what had happened.”

Wendell did not see the attack but a local news station that came to film the property on Monday captured a video of a hawk he believes to be the one that attacked his wife.

“He still flies around out there,” he said. “He must live right there.”

At the hospital, Jones was bandaged and given antibiotics. She discovered that her glasses had chipped and her lenses had a liquid substance that she thought could have been venom from the snake. Doctors said her wounds were not caused by a snake bite, but rather by the hawk’s talons.

Still, after Jones was released from the hospital that evening, she stayed up all night to make sure that her arm didn’t swell or blacken, which are symptoms of snake venom. Thankfully, this was not the case.

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Two weeks later, Jones still has open wounds and bruises on her forearm. She has received an outpouring of support from strangers around the world on social media, who are praying for her speedy recovery.

Jones believes that she will physically recover, though she said that she has had recurring nightmares about the episode. She has had trouble eating and sleeping, she said, and, at times, will scream and yell out for help in her sleep.

Her nightmares vary. Some are a rehash of the encounter, Jones said, while others are stranger.

“Sometimes I’m in a room and there’s snakes on the wall and snakes on the ceiling and snakes all over the floor,” she said.

Wendell said the nightmares were likely the result of the snake and hawk encounter, combined with an earlier misfortune: Two years ago, his wife was bitten by a venomous snake while working on another property in Silsbee.

“She’s snake-wary now,” he said. “I’m pretty sure she’ll be frightened of anything that looks or moves like a snake.”

Still, Peggy believes she is fortunate despite what many of her newfound supporters tell her.

“I consider myself to be the luckiest person alive,” she said. “I was attacked by a snake and a hawk and I lived to tell about it.” – The New York Times

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