Rattlesnake swims toward boat, tries to jump in
BRYSON CITY, NC (STORYFUL) - There were some scary moments for summer campers on a lake in North Carolina when a rattlesnake swam toward their boat and tried to get on.
Wayne Robbins said he spends the day once a year with the kids of the Adventure Amputee Camp.
He was on the boat on Fontana Lake with four children with limb differences, along with his wife and two children. Two camp counselors were being pulled by the boat on a tube when everyone saw the rattlesnake swimming toward them.
On the video, screaming is heard as the rattlesnake approaches, swims alongside the boat, and finally tries to board the boat in the back.
Robbins, who posted the video to social media, said he was able to mostly keep his cool until he got the snake to head in a different direction.
“This is our second time at that lake and the first timber rattlesnake we’ve ever encountered,” Robbins told Raycom News Network.
“We thought he was being extremely aggressive, but it turns out he was just very desperate to get out of the water. When he began heading toward the boat, my wife and I became concerned he could be a problem,” Robbins told Fox News.
Robbins, who was volunteering with the Adventure Amputee Camp, was also worried for the children who “did not have their prosthetics with them and do not move so easily." There were also two counselors on a tube behind the boat, which made it difficult to move forward.
“I would have drug them into the snake, and I knew it could climb onto the tube with them. So simply pulling away was not an option,” he said, adding that it was “pretty crowded and the kids were fairly excited, so getting something from under the seats to deter the snake with was going to take some time.”
Rattlesnakes can swim, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed. Timber rattlesnakes, more specifically, are capable of swimming on the water’s surface and under it.