This true story happened to me many years ago in 2007.
I was up in a tree, 20 feet off of the ground, cutting away branches that overhang the house and the propane tank. I didn’t want any more hitting the house or the tank like they did when the ice storms came and knocked down branches this winter. The chainsaw is racing, bark and sawdust is flying in my face and on my heavy jacket. It’s a warm day, but I’m wearing the jacket and heavy gloves to keep my arms from getting all scratched and bruised. I’m leaning slightly back and cutting at an unusual and uncomfortable angle because I have no choice but to do so. The saw chain bites and digs in, causing a kickback. I start to lose my balance and the ladder starts to move out and away from the tree. I reached out with my left arm to wrap around a nearby branch and hold on.
What I get is a big black snake scurrying down the backside of the limb. He was trying to slip by me and get away from the ruckus. I couldn’t see him at first and all I was doing was trying to grab something to keep from falling. I could feel something biting at my forearm, above my heavy gloves. My left arm is wrapped around a big branch, the right arm has the chainsaw that has now kicked away from the tree and is racing at 12,000 revolutions per minute. I can’t flip off the switch on the saw because I can’t let go of the snake. This is the same switch that frequently flips to the off position when I don’t want it to do but now is out of reach of my fingers. I’m up 20 feet in a tree, the snake is twisting, wriggling and trying to bite through my jacket and I’m hanging on for dear life. I don’t want to drop and ruin the saw. If I did that, I’d have to grab the tree with the free arm to let go of the snake and I don’t know what he’s going to do when I let him go. I just can’t reason very well when this snake is continually biting on my arm. Joyce is always inside the house when I’m up in a tree and the saw is running because she’s afraid of me getting hurt and she doesn’t want to spread that fear to me. She always comes back out when the saw is turned off to see if I’m ok or if I have fallen to the ground. I start to bring the raging saw over to cut the snake’s head off, when I realize that if I slip, I could cut my arm off instead, that same arm that is holding me up in the tree. Like I said, I’m not thinking very well. Just then the ladder slips, sliding into a mole run that was digging around the base of the tree, not an uncommon event, but usually I spot them and avoid them. The ladder tilts to the side and I slide, making me drop the saw. Now I’m hanging by both arms, the ladder is totally unusable in the angle it’s at and my arms are aching, trying to hold on to the tree and the darn snake. I don’t want to think about sliding down 20 feet of bark and landing with the ladder that will surely fall when I do.
The chainsaw shut off when it hit the ground, so Joyce comes out the back door, after hearing the saw shut off and sees me hanging by the branches. She shrieks, “are you ok?”
“Yes, just get over here and stabilize the ladder, quickly!”
She runs down the steps and across the yard, and then tries to lift and stabilize the ladder, but it’s too heavy and I’m pinned against it. “I can’t move it,” she says.
“Go get a shovel from the barn and dig around the other foot so you can level it and position it so I can come down,” I pleaded. All the while this is going on; the snake is twisting in my hand trying to get free from my grip. I can’t let go because I’m afraid he’ll come around and bite me in the face or something like that.
Joyce finally digs around the other leg enough to get the ladder stable enough for me to stand on and I try to fling the snake away, but he’s figured out his only avenue of escape is to go up and over my shoulder and he’s not going to fly down by himself, so I continue to grab and now he’s that much closer to my face. He had tried in vain to get away before, but now he’s hanging on until he can go over my shoulder, and that isn’t going to happen unless my hand just ceases to be able to hold him and keep him from doing what he wants. I’m standing on the ladder and can finally let go with the right arm that was holding the chainsaw. The left arm’s on fire with pain and spasm, to the point where I can only let it dangle until the muscle begins to recover. My arm was tired from holding the saw one handed to begin with, but when I dropped the saw and grabbed the branch it really got tired in a hurry. The muscle kind of locked and that’s the only thing that saved me. The only thing I could do is stand there on the ladder, holding on to the darn snake at arm’s length. It took a couple of minutes to regain strength in the right arm and allow the shooting pains to subside so I could use it to get myself down the still somewhat shaky ladder. Joyce is down below screaming, “don’t drop that snake on me!” “I can’t,” I said; “he won’t let me go now!” I started down the ladder with Joyce holding it to keep it as stable as possible. When I got down to 6 steps from the bottom she let go and bolted a few feet away. She’s only afraid of three things in life, snakes, mice and ladders, so this was a triple whammy for her. I was very proud of her courage in the face of fear, so this abandonment at the last moment was no shame on her; she came through when the chips were down. I was stepping off of the last rung when the ladder keeled over and fell on its side. The snake was still wrapped around my arm. He wouldn’t let go and neither would I. We were both scared. I went to the barn and got the garden rake and used it to pin his head to the ground. I called Joyce over to unwind him from my arm, but she said: “I can’t help you! I can’t touch that thing.” “You have to get some gloves and help me,” I said. She went over and grabbed a pair of gloves. “Don’t let go of him,” she begged. “You grab that tail and unwind him,” I ordered. “What if he bites me,” she asked. “I’ve got his head pinched with the rake so he can’t bite,” I answered. She started to unwind him, but he was still struggling, she let go and he coiled right back around my arm. “You have to do this, I said. “I can’t do it and hold his head down at the same time.” She took hold of him and finally unraveled him from my arm. “Stretch him out and then let him go,” I said. She did and he curled up around that rake handle in a split second. I told her to move away and then I let go and jumped back. He realized he was now free and he just stayed there and stared at us to see what we were going to do. We continued backing away and when he felt secure he slithered away in the opposite direction. We walked back to the porch and sat down with a cold beer to calm ourselves. Both my arms were bruised from clinging onto the branches, but the heavy work jacket and gloves kept the snake from penetrating and cutting into my arm. Black snakes don’t have fangs, just small sharp teeth that were no match for the heavy jacket and gloves. Joyce asked me why I didn’t just kill the snake when I had him down with the rake and I had to admit it just didn’t occur to me at the time. I decided to have a couple more beers and not go back up in the trees.
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