A mum was left in “complete shock” when a snake fell out of her daughter’s new toy car box.
Jennifer Baker from Norris Green, Liverpool, had put the empty box on top of the oven after her daughter opened it for her third birthday.
Only later when she came to move it did she discover the bright orange snake and at first thought her sons had been playing a prank.
“I thought it was a toy,” the 30-year-old said. “It’s only when its tongue started moving I realised it was a real snake and I started screaming, its real”.
Ms Baker had been celebrating her daughter’s birthday and had been given the gift earlier that day.
“I took the car out and I put the empty box on top of the oven and then I just went about my day,” she said.
But later when she went to put the box into the recycling bin, she said it felt heavier.
As she lifted it “a snake just fell out of it”, she said.
“I said ‘whose is this’, because I was thinking ‘they haven’t got a toy snake that looks like that’,” but when she saw it moving she started to panic.
“I was staring at this snake and I’m screaming – it’s a real snake,” she said.
“I just was in shock. Walking into the kitchen to find a snake on my oven. I was thinking how has a snake got in my kitchen?”.
Hearing her screams Ms Baker’s mum had rushed in to help.
“So then me and my mum are trying to get this snake into an empty box and its trying to wrap itself around my arm, it was just mad,” she said.
The pair finally managed to contain the snake and later found out it belonged to someone who lives on the same street.
She said it had now been returned to its owner.