Snake on chest while sleeping?
Now, this is not very common, however I have heard it enough times from people to know that it actually does happen.
When sleeping in the open or in an open tent (yes, i know you shouldn't), snakes can 'crawl' up on you due to the heat that you emit. I know of a few cases from friends of mine in which the snake was on top of the sleeping bag on the chest/stomach area. I don't know if that is usual practice or just accident. And both stories they got rid of it by either notifying other members of group, which took care of it, or by removing it by hand.
Is there a safer, more intelligent way to remove the snake from your chest?
And I know that you should avoid this situation all together, however if you've missed something out, you might wake up to that. What do you do?
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If you end up with a snake on your chest while sleeping, you can rest assured that the snake is not in an aggressive mood. It's on top of you because it thinks you're cozy and warm, if it's cozy then it's going to be pretty mild tempered. I imagine you could easily grab it behind the head and take it out of your tent. If you don't want to touch it, just flip the top of your sleeping bag over it, get out of your bag, gather it up, then go shake your bag out away from your tent. Snakes only strike when they feel threatened, if a snake is getting snuggly with you, then it obviously doesn't feel threatened. The most important thing to do would be to remain calm and don't make any sudden movements that might startle the snake, chances are good that it could be asleep, the next most important thing to determine is what kind of snake is it? You only need to worry about it if it's poisonous.
One way to prevent snakes from slithering up to you is to clear away everything on the ground around where you're sleeping. Snakes don't typically like to slither out into exposed areas, so if you clear away all the leaves, sticks and grass then the snakes may just stick to the shrubs and go around you. Sleeping in a hammock or off the ground some other way is also advantageous in preventing this kind of critter encounter.
Your situation could be worse. My aunt was camping alone one time and a big black bear found her and snuggled up to her in the middle of the night, it laid down right on the zipper of her sleeping bag, trapping her there. She had no choice but to wait it out. After a long night of loud bear-snores the bear eventually woke up and just wandered off. My experience with snakes is that they typically want to get away from you, if I had a snake on me I'd probably just bat it off and away from under the bag and roll away from it, chances are good it'll be like, "Holy crap that was a living thing I was on!" and just slither away back into the bushes.
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There was an old Reader's Digest story, apparently true, where a camper woke up with a very big rattler (as he saw later) coiled on his chest under the sleeping bag. He had trouble communicating to his friends what was happening and the things they tried (I can't remember what, maybe messing with the zipper) just seemed to agitate the snake. They ended up overheating it somehow, maybe with sun and mirrors, until it got uncomfortable and slithered out past the man's face.
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I am not entirely sure if this answers the question at all and if it does then is it in best possible ways.
There is no solution to this unfortunate and freaking situation. Whatever you do, it is gonna bite you the moment you move. Although, one should consider covering own face (and, NOT the snake's face :D) by hands so that he/she may have a better chance to survive the bite and get away with a manageable physical damage but again, thats tough as we have slower reflexes than almost all of them.
The moment when you realize that a snake is there on your chest, in most of the cases it is going to be an obvious and a natural reaction to freak out and make a sudden move, and trust me 9/10 times, you will already have got bitten by it within 3-5 seconds from the time when you realize that its there and make a move out of panic.
I am not sure if grabbing the snake would help or not. Because if you grab it, it would definitely bite you even if it didn't want to a moment ago.
To put it in a simple way, Prevention is better than cure, follow the basics, don't end up in a situation like that. If indeed you find yourself in such a situation, protect your face.
Interesting piece of information to read if you are bitten: What are the first aid precautions to be taken in case of a snake bite?
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