SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A woman was browsing the spice aisle of an Australian supermarket when she came face-to-face with a huge snake.
The head of the 10-foot-long non-venomous diamond python emerged through a space in a shelf above the spice jars in the Sydney store.
The woman, Helaina Alati, told The Associated Press that the snake’s head came within 8 inches of her own.
Coincidentally though, she’s a trained snake catcher.
After taking a video of the snake and alerting the market, Alati says she retrieved a snake-catching bag from her nearby home, returned to the supermarket and caught the snake before releasing it into nearby woodland.
Supermarket chain Woolworths confirmed in a statement that a “slippery and rare customer was spotted in the spice aisle” on Monday morning at its store in the suburb of Glenorie on Sydney’s northwest outskirts.
It remains unclear how or when the snake got into the market.
