Man Who Fought Deadly Snake While Doing 123km/h On Aussie Highway Has Been Sacked

The man who went viral for fighting a brown snake while speeding down an Australian highway has been sacked from his job.

James 'Jimmy' Canhan was pulled over by Queensland Police for doing 123km/h on the Dawson Highway in the state's north. He told the officer who stopped him that he was trying to protect himself from a deadly serpent that had slithered in through the gear shaft.

Jimmy managed to keep his car on the road while also fending off the snake with a knife.

While he wasn't fined for going well above the speed limit, it seems like the incident has caused him to lose his job.

He told the Courier Mail: "My boss called me and said I didn't have a job anymore, when I was just spending time with my daughter Annabelle, who lives with her mum in Townsville, and didn't have work on anyway.

"I had a company car, so I sold my own car and now I'm left with nothing to drive. So now I've got no job and I have my daughter to help support. My dog needs to go to vet for his ear, and I just want to get my finances sorted out to pay for it."

He described his frightening encounter with the snake as 'something out of The Chamber of Secrets' and says it was 'primal instinct' that kicked into gear when he was face to face with the animal.

Queensland Police

"I had no other thoughts in my head but get this thing out of here," he said. "It just unfurled like this octopus as soon as it knew I knew it was there, and it was on!"

Jimmy managed to find a work knife to fight off the serpent but he was still racing along the highway. How he didn't plough the car straight off the road is beyond us.

He told Queensland Police: "The more I moved my legs...it just started to wrap around me. Its head just started striking at the [driver's seat] chair, between my legs."

Brown snakes can cause death if a victim isn't treated quickly and the 27-year-old driver was worried he had already been bitten. Paramedics eventually arrived and determined that, thankfully, Jimmy hadn't been bitten by the snake and he was allowed to go on his way without a fine for speeding.

Topics: News, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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