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Yikes! Live python falls from hospital ceiling

Posted at 8:06 AM, May 10, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-10 10:06:51-04

TACOMA, Wash. — A month after slithering into the ceiling of Washington’s Tacoma General Hospital, a white ball python is back with its owner.

Sources say a visitor brought the snake to the hospital in a cat carrier full of stuffed animals.

After the owner went home, he realized his python had escaped and notified the hospital, according to KCPQ.

Hospital workers said they didn’t think anything of it because they see strange things happen all the time. The snake was found, “when it came out of the ceiling ventilation on April 30,” said Marce Edwards with MultiCare Health System.

Edwards confirmed that the owner picked up his fugitive pet reptile and took it home. It’s not clear what the snake was eating and drinking while living in the hidden passageways and ceiling areas of the facility.

As terrifying as it might be for someone confined to a hospital bed to see a snake drop from the ceiling, no one was ever in any real danger.

Ball python snakes are not venomous and the constrictors don’t usually get large enough to pose a danger to humans.