Many years back, I was working at Station 109 with my late partners, firefighter Gib Martin and engineer Keith Terada (sadly, both of my friends have passed, and I miss them dearly). It was late May, and the air was already starting to get that dry, crispy feel that promises a long, nervous fire season. The department had just carpet-bombed the neighborhood with brush clearance notices, and homeowners were scrambling to get their properties in order.
This particular call came from a guy whose backyard wasn't so much a yard as a launching pad into a steep, scrub-choked canyon. He’d hired a crew of day laborers to attack the overgrown nightmare, and they’d unearthed something that made them drop their weed-whackers and flee en masse, chattering in panicked Spanish.
The infamous Snake Call came in. Since it was a slow afternoon, the whole crew—me, Gib, Keith, and Capt—piled onto the rig like kids heading to an ice cream shop, if the ice cream was potentially lethal and had a serious attitude problem.
As we pulled up to the address, there they were: a full welcoming committee. Five terrified landscapers and one pale, trembling homeowner, all clustered on the sidewalk like they’d been evicted by a demon. Which, in a way, they had.
I grabbed the snake catcher—a mean-looking device we called the "Snake-Snare." It was a six-foot pole with a wire cable running through it, forming a loop at the end. The idea was to lasso the snake like a scaly calf and ratchet it tight. Simple. Elegant. What could possibly go wrong?
Keith, our engineer, grabbed the heavy canvas snake bag, and Gib walked over to the workers. Most of them spoke Spanish, and Gib was our best translator. As we approached, all five men started jabbering and pointing up the steep, brush-choked hill that formed the back border of the property. The air was thick with the scent of pure panic.
Two of them kept crossing themselves and saying it over and over: "¡El diablo! ¡El diablo!"
I froze. "Gib, did that dude just say 'the Devil'?"
Gib turned to me, his face uncharacteristically serious. "Yeah, brother. He did. They say it's not a snake. It's the Devil himself. Big as a tree, with eyes of fire."
A cold trickle of dread, completely separate from the May heat, ran down my spine. This ain't starting the right way. I should have feigned a sudden, debilitating case of appendicitis. But no... pride is a terrible, stupid thing. "I got this," I said, my voice cracking like a teenager asking a girl to prom.
The three of us ventured into the backyard. The left side was a sheer hillside, so steep it felt like a wall. A narrow, crumbling path, no wider than my boots, skirted its base. To our right, the ground fell away into a small, bramble-filled ravine. We were walking a literal tightrope. The brush on the hillside was so overgrown it formed a tunnel, the dry branches scraping at our helmets like they were trying to warn us off.
All five workers pointed up the path, about thirty yards ahead. Keith, brave or foolish, took the lead with the bag. I was five steps behind him with the Snake-Snare, and Gib brought up the rear, our anchor to sanity.
The pucker factor was already at a solid 8. We were in the snake's world, and we were clumsy, noisy intruders. We were breaking the number one rule: Never go into the Devil’s house. Ever.
We crept forward, our eyes glued to the dirt path, expecting to see the beast sunning itself. We got to the spot the workers had indicated. Keith stopped and turned around to check on us and get a better visual from the guys below.
As he turned his head, I took one more step.
And I stopped. My body went rigid.
The workers down below started screaming, a chorus of pure, unadulterated terror.
"¡Allí! ¡Allí! ¡EL DIABLO!"
Keith’s eyes, which had been looking down at the men, snapped up and locked with mine. In that split second, I saw my own impending doom reflected in his pupils. His face drained of all color, his jaw went slack. His expression didn't say "snake." It said, "Oh, you are profoundly, utterly, and monumentally screwed."
My brain, slowly and with the grace of a crashing airplane, processed why I had stopped. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was a primal, limbic-system override.
Time didn't just slow; it crystallized. My bowels staged a full-scale mutiny, sending a seismic "butt shiver" so violent up my spine I’m amazed it didn’t launch my helmet into low-earth orbit.
My peripheral vision had registered something wrong with the "wall" to my left. Something that wasn't a branch.
Then I heard it. A dry, soft shushing sound, mere inches from my left temple.
WTF.
I think most people in the county might have thought a jet just broke the sound barrier. But I can assure you, that sonic boom was just my ass puckering at a velocity previously unknown to science.
I didn't dare turn my head. I didn't dare breathe. But I could feel it. I could feel the minute displacement of air with every flick of that forked tongue. It was tasting me. It was tasting my sweat, my shampoo, my sheer, unvarnished terror. It was checking the menu.
Gib, by this time, had walked up behind me. "What's the hold—" he started, then cut himself off. I heard his sharp intake of breath.
"Gib," I whispered, my voice tighter than a banjo string. "It's by my head."
“Holy mother of…” Gib whispered, stopping in his tracks. “That’s not a snake, that’s a fire hose with a grudge and a bad attitude.”
Gib’s second response was less than comforting. "Well... fuck me, this ain’t good."
That didn’t help the cause. I could see every individual scale on her head, the heat-sensing pits between her eyes and nostrils, the cold, alien intelligence in her gaze. My brain short-circuited. Every ounce of moisture in my body teleported directly to my palms and the seat of my pants. The "butt shivers" weren't a metaphor; my glutes were doing the Macarena of sheer, unadulterated panic.
I felt Gib slowly, painfully slowly, reach forward. His hand closed over the Snake-Snare in my right hand, which was now a river of sweat. My grip was so tight with panic that when he gently pulled, the thing slipped from my grasp like a wet bar of soap in a jailhouse shower.
"Don't. You. Flipping. Move," Gib whispered, his voice low and steady.
Haha, I think I knew that.
Like the skilled mechanic he was, Gib moved with an agonizing precision I didn't know he possessed. I felt the cool metal of the snare pole graze the very top of my left ear. He was maneuvering it past my head, into the brush.
I heard a slight rustle, then the zzzip sound of the cable sliding fast.
"GOT him!" Gib yelled.
And the fight was on.
First, that bastard wasn't laying on the ground; it was hanging in a big bush like some kind of horrific Christmas ornament from the depths of Hades. Second, this snake was massive. Over six feet long and its center mass was a solid fifteen inches around—a scaled firehose of pure muscle and rage.
The rattling was no longer a warning; it was a full-blown industrial accident happening eight inches from my head. The snake thrashed and coiled against the pole, and Gib started doing a two-step on the narrow path, wrestling with Medusa herself.
I looked at Keith. His eyes were still wide as dinner plates. He didn't offer to help. He just threw the heavy canvas snake bag at my chest like a hot potato. I think I heard him mumble, "I ain't dealin' with that," as he backpedaled.
Somehow, without all three of us tumbling into the ravine, we managed to guide the thrashing, pissed-off serpent into the bag. Getting the head in was a religious experience I never want to repeat. To say that snake weighed around fifteen pounds was no joke. It felt like it had just eaten a small deer or a particularly chonky coyote.
We all just stood there for a second, breathing like we’d just run a marathon. Keith finally found his voice. "You should be dead," he said, shaking his head. He then picked up a long stick and, for the entire walk back down the hill, kept poking my left ear with it. "Yep. Right there. That's where death was."
As we emerged from the backyard, the homeowner and workers stared at the bulging, writhing bag like we’d just emerged from hell with a trophy.
Gib, ever the professional, shouted to our Captain who was waiting by the rig, "Hey Cap! We got the snake, but we need to take another run! Bills got a Code Brown!"
We all burst into the kind of hysterical, adrenaline-fueled laughter that borders on sobbing.
I am having flashbacks just typing this, like I was in some kind of scaly, tongue-flicking war zone. To this day, the mere smell of dry brush sends a jolt through my system that culminates in a full-body clench—a PTSD-induced "butt shiver" so violent I have to have a quiet word with my internal organs. All because I came face-to-forked-tongue with the Devil on a hillside, and for one eternal second, felt the air move with the promise of a strike that never came.
But hold on. This is nothing. The story has just started.
We get down to flat land, and Gib, being Gib, called the workers over. He thought it would be a riot to show them the monster that had sent them running. "Come on, boys! Come see! ¡Ven acá!" he yelled, waving them over.
I was still shaking uncontrollably, sweat pouring down my face like I’d just run a marathon. I held the heavy, writhing bag while Gib, with a theatrical flourish, loosened the top of the bag. "This one," Gib announced in his broken Spanish, "¡Este serpiente come trabajadores para divertirse!" (This snake eats workers for fun!)
The five men crowded around, their curiosity overcoming their fear. They peered into the dark opening of the bag. There was a collective gasp. Then, a rapid-fire exchange of Spanish. They looked from the bag to us, their faces not relieved, but utterly confused. They started waving their hands and backing away.
"No, no, no!" one of them insisted, pointing frantically back up the hill. "¡Poquito! ¡Es poquito!"
Poquito? Little? This devil beast we caught was the baby! Holy Hell!
Another worker, his eyes wide with a fear that made our encounter seem trivial, clarified. He pointed at the bag, then stabbed his finger toward the canyon. "¡El diablo BLANCO!" he screamed. "¡El GRANDE diablo blanco!"
The blood drained from my face. Gib’s smirk vanished. Keith dropped his stupid stick.
Blanco. White.
There was a bigger one. A white one. Still up there.
Who has ever heard of a white rattlesnake? I just thought to myself, these guys are colorblind, but they sure know first-hand what an anaconda looks like with rattles.
I instantly became fluent in Spanish. "¡Nope!" I yelled, which is apparently universal for "I am out of here." I wrapped up the bag and bolted for the front yard, squishy pants and all. The sad part? The homeowner, who saw the sheer terror on all our faces, was worse than any of us. He and all his workers, who had just moments before been huddled around, beat me to the sidewalk. "¡No más! ¡No más!" they yelled, piling into their truck and peeling out like we’d just unleashed a zombie apocalypse.
At 109’s, we were one of the few stations that had a proper snake cage. We used it for open houses to show visitors the local wildlife they might encounter. With an event coming up, Captain decided our "poquito" Diablo—all six feet and twelve rattles of him—would be the star attraction.
We kept him at the station for a week. And this is where the story curdles my blood and gives me uncontrollable sphincter spasms to this day.
Every. Single. Time. I walked past that glass cage, I’d hear a loud, violent WHACK! against the glass. I’d jump a foot in the air and turn to see a smear of venom dripping down the pane, the big diamondback coiled back, staring at me with those black, pitiless eyes.
It was only me. Gib would walk by, whistling. Nothing. Keith would amble past to get coffee. The snake wouldn't even twitch. The Captain could stand right in front of the glass and give a safety lecture. The serpent would just watch him, calm as you please.
But me? Nope.
WHACK!
Every time, day or night. That fanged demon from hell missed his chance on the hill, and he held a grudge. He wanted me, and he wanted me bad.
A week after the open house, Captain told Gib and me to take the snake up to dirt Mulholland and release it. It was a quiet drive. I held the bag hovering above my lap like a live bomb, keeping it as far from my body as humanly possible. Gib, sensing my tension, didn't even crack a joke.
We pulled over on the side of the road, about twenty yards from a steep drop-off into wild brush. Perfect snake country. I got out, leaving the Hummer door wide open—my planned escape route. I walked carefully to the edge, my heart thumping again.
"Alright, you ugly bastard," I muttered. "Time to go home."
I turned the bag over and gave it a mighty heave, flinging the snake as far out into the brush as I could. I didn't wait to see it land. I turned around immediately, my head down, and started furiously wrapping the empty snake bag around the two control sticks we used, my back to the canyon. Mission accomplished. It was over.
Suddenly, I heard Gib screaming, "RUN! RUN!", and then he started laying on the horn.
At first, I thought he was messing with me, but the third "RUN, DUDE!" got me thinking.
I turned around, and holy crap—that snake had the DNA of a Cobra, a freaking Cobra! It had a third of its body off the ground and was on my ass! I had never heard of a snake chasing someone down like that, but it was happening in real time. I turned, and my fat ass and started to run so fast I felt my work pants heating up from the chub rub. My thighs were creating so much static electricity I started worrying about starting a brush fire right then and there! How the hell would I explain that to the department?
I thought I was kind of fast, but that snake wanted me bad for his missed opportunity a week prior; he wanted my soul. Thank God I left the Hummer door open. As I was jumping in, Gib had already placed the rig in reverse (I think he was going to leave without me). I swear, as I lifted my right leg up and into the rig, Gib punched it and ran over that damn snake. It was seriously that close.
Gib and I love snakes and do all we can to never kill them, always trying to relocate them instead. Gib stopped the Hummer about 30 feet back, and sure enough, the snake had found his fate with the Hummer's right front tire. I swear I did not think ol' Billy Boy was going to get out of that alive.
In his wise wisdom, Gib accidentally ran over the snake again as we turned back toward the station. Then he backed up. Then he went forward. Then back up and forward again. I just sat there with my jaw dropped and heart beating out of my chest. After the fourth time Gib shifted gears, he looked at me and said he didn't want that thing coming back to the station, the snake getting him mistaken for me, and getting eaten. Really Gib, I said? (I sure miss my friends…)
This is a straight-up true story of actual events, and yes, if you tick off a snake enough, they can tail walk like a cobra as they chase you down.
PS: The moral of this story is that we, as a group, broke one of the cardinal rules of catching snakes: NEVER GO INTO THE BUSH to catch them. When we showed up that day on the original call, we should have said, "Sorry boys, If you see him again, call us and keep an eye on him. If it's in the bushes, that's their home, and we don't go knocking."
