New York teen awakens to 3-foot snake

Published 10:27 pm Monday, June 15, 2009

NEW YORK — A New York City teen waking up in his family’s first-floor apartment in the Bronx came face-to-face with an uninvited guest: 3-foot long boa constrictor.

Kareem Lewis woke up around 10 a.m. Sunday to find the reptile in his home. “The snake was just staring at me,” a shaken Lewis told the New York Post.

“I started to panic when he started to slither at me,” said Lewis, whose mother and brother was at church.

“When my brother called at church to tell us about the snake in the house, my heart almost stopped, and we ran home,” 10-year-old Patrick Lewis told the Post.

The 18-year-old called 911. “When the cops got there they didn’t know what to do either, so I got them a pillow case and one of the cops with his nightstick got the boa inside, and they held it for animal control.” Kareem Lewis told the Post.

Mother Charmaine Hayles told the Post that she guessed the snake slithered in through a window.