A TEXAS woman was attacked by a hawk and a snake at the same time after the bird – which eats snakes – accidentally dropped the wriggling serpent on her.
Peggy Jones, 64, was mowing her lawn last month when a passing hawk dropped a snake on her before swooping down to angrily try to reclaim its meal.
The snake wrapped itself around her arm and began striking her face as the bird sunk its talons deep into her flesh.
The terrifying ordeal left her with cuts and bruising to her arm and face.
The bizarre incident took place on 25 July in the town of Silsbee, Texas, near the Louisiana border.
It began after a snake suddenly fell out of the sky and landed on her. Before she could remove it, the hawk attack began.
“As I was trying to sling my arm and sling the snake off, the snake wrapped around my arm,” she told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
“The snake was striking in my face, it struck my glasses a couple of times… I was slinging and slinging, he was striking and striking, and he just kept hanging on.”
She realised it must have been dropped by a passing bird, since she was not standing under trees when it happened. Her assumption was quickly confirmed when the hawk swooped down and joined in the melee.
“Then the hawk appeared just as fast as the snake appeared,” Mrs Jones said.
“The hawk grabbed the snake that was wrapped around my arm and pulled it like he was going to carry it away. And when he did, it flung my arm up. The hawk was carrying my arm and the snake with it.”
The hawk struggled to remove the snake from Mrs Jones body, stabbing her with its talons repeatedly as it attempted to snatch back its food.
Eventually the snake was pulled from her arm, leaving her startled husband to drive her to the hospital.
“There were puncture wounds, cuts, abrasions, scratches and severe bruising,” she said, adding that the snake’s attacks to her face damaged her glasses.
Mrs Jones described the attack as severely traumatic, adding that she thought she was going to die and has had trouble sleeping since it happened.
She told CBS that living in rural Texas, she is no stranger to wildlife encounters.
“I’ve actually seen a hawk pick up a snake. That’s something they do, that’s how they kill their prey,” she said.