These Good Samaritans stopped traffic to help an enormous snake safely cross the road

Whoa!

These kind people aren’t just Good Samaritans, they’re great Samaritans. When folks caught sight of a huge anaconda trying to cross a busy road in Brazil, they stopped traffic to get the creature across safely.

Italo Nascimento Fernandes captured video of the rescue in the city of Porto Velho. He told animal news website The Dodo that he and his wife saw the snake on the side of the highway and decided to pull over to help it.

“We decided to stop the car and get out,” he said. “There are no signs for the cars to wait so she can cross. I have seen snakes run over on the highway before, and think such a thing is a crime.”

Fernandes and other motorists quickly banded together to block traffic (and get their cameras out). In one video of the event, posted on Facebook by media outlet @Rondoniaovivo, a huge semi nearly hits the massive snake at the start of its crossing.

Once the road is clear, it slithers over the concrete boundary in the median and faces two more lanes of oncoming traffic.

You can hear the excited onlookers speaking in Portuguese as the snake slips past. (One guy in the video above looks a little peeved about the delay, but most everyone else waits patiently.)

Fernandes’ clip, which he posted on Facebook, shows the snake finally finishing its crossing and sliding into the tall grass at the side of the highway.

A small cheer goes up when it’s safely off the road.

Fernandes said many people helped the process, telling the Dodo, “It’s not everyone who protects animals like that. Some people prefer to see them dead. Seeing all the people help gave a wonderful sensation.”

The snake was apparently a girl, as confirmed in this tweet from Instagram user @WaltherFreitas.

Meanwhile, on a certain road in the state of Rondonia, northern Brazil, an #Anaconda (Eunectes murinus, known in Brazil as a #sucuri )decides to go out for a walk. Fortunately, the local passers-by managed to stop the traffic and allow the safe passage of the "little" girl. ⁦ pic.twitter.com/kMIrKznYZe

— Walther Freitas  🇺🇳🇵🇹🇻🇪🇧🇷🇺🇦 (@waltherfreitas) April 25, 2019

According to National Geographic, anacondas are not venomous, but it’s a good thing the people standing nearby gave this one a wide berth.

Anacondas kill their prey by constricting around an animal and squeezing until it suffocates. It can take mere seconds for the snake to wrap itself around its meal in a death grip.

Anacondas like the one in the video can weigh up to 550 pounds and reach more than 29 feet in length; females are much larger than males.

Flavio Terrasini, a biologist with Centro Universitário São Lucas, told G1 Globo that this specimen was probably about 10 years old and 30 kilos, or 66 lbs.

“These snakes can appear in urban areas in search of food, which is small rodents, and in the city they can feed themselves on dogs and cats,” Terassini explained. “So it’s good to be careful not to leave the trash in the yard because these animals can smell the rodents or these animals and close to homes, especially in the rainy season.”

The snakes have also been known to chow down on deer, wild pigs and the occasional jaguar. A human would probably not pose much of a challenge for a full-grown anaconda.

Fortunately, anacondas aren’t as good at hunting on land as in the water. Everyone made it out of this encounter safely, thanks to some really gutsy locals!