Georgia gas station customer finds 3- to 4-foot snake hiding at pump

June 6 (UPI) -- A couple who stopped at a northwest Georgia gas station to fill up their tank sought assistance when they discovered a snake in the nozzle holder.

Loren-Stacie Fleener said in a Facebook post they were at the Cowboys Shell gas station on U.S. Highway 278 in Cedartown when they noticed something amiss about their gas pump.

"We stopped at Cowboys, and Matthew was trying to get gas and noticed a snake up inside the pump handle. We moved to another pump and a guy Brandon Radke came over and got it out," Fleener wrote in the post, which included video of Radke's snake extraction.

The video shows Radke, with a shirt wrapped around his hands for protection, move the 3 to 4-foot snake around with the gas pump nozzle and grab it behind the head.

"Once you grab behind the head it can't really reach around and get you," Radke told WSB-TV.

Radke said he took the serpent, a non-venomous rat snake, to the woods and released it.

"Caution! Look carefully before picking up those gas handles," Fleenor wrote.