Technician finds dead snake in motor of Florida family's dryer

March 24 (UPI) -- A Florida family who called a repair service to find out why their dryer was malfunctioning said the technician discovered an unusual problem: a snake was caught in the motor.

Alyson Pring of Groveland said her family contacted Sea Star Air and Appliances when their dryer started blowing an excessive amount of lint.

Technician Darrell Cobble responded to the family's home and told the family it would likely be an easy repair.

"He came out said it was probably something stuck in there, the motor jammed, easy fix," Pring told WKMG-TV.

Pring said Cobble opened up the dryer and received a surprise.

"He just stands up, and he walks off. He's like, 'There's a dead snake in there,'" Pring said.

Pring's son, Alex, who made headlines in 2015 when actor Robert Downey Jr. presented him with a bionic arm developed by the University of Central Florida, said the scene was difficult to believe.

"I thought, 'That is not a snake, that is a pile of lint,'" he said.

The large snake had apparently slithered up the dryer's exhaust vent.

"It's not something you normally find in there but you find them. ... So on the outside, they normally have a grate that kind of stops it from going up there. They didn't have one, so it kind of found its way," Cobble said.

The snake was removed and the dryer is now working normally again. The Prings said they are placing mothballs at the vent entrance to ward off wildlife.

"Could've been much worse, but I'm glad it was dead, done, fixed it up and ready to go," Pring said.