The summer heat has many of us feeling like the safest place to be these days is inside. But as it turns out, that's not always the best idea either. There have been numerous accounts of people bitten by snakes in their own homes, and one recent incident is particularly harrowing. A new viral video shows a snake biting a man's head when he tries to open his front door. Read on to find out how it happened so you can avoid the same fate.
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A snake bit a man's head when he opened his front door.
A 16-second clip has been viewed more than 34.8 million times in just three days, thanks to a rather slithery surprise. The now-viral video was posted July 29 on Stevie Haven's TikTok page @haven1988, with the caption "Snake bites Dad on Head... haha he thought he was gone."
The TikTok shows Ring camera footage of Haven's dad walking up on the front porch of his house. When he opens the screen door, you can see a snake perched on top. Then as he tries to get the front door open, the creature quickly lunges for the top of the man's head.
"Ah! I got bit," Haven's dad screams as he looks up and sees the snake. He then runs back from the door, falling down the stairs and into the yard, while yelling, "Ow, I got bit!"
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He wasn't the first one to get bitten.
Haven's dad wasn't the only one attacked either. When people in the comment section questioned why he didn't yell out to warn others about where the creature was, Haven revealed that his dad wasn't the snake's first victim.
"He was the second one to get bit because no one told him," he responded.
According to Haven, the snake had nipped his dad's girlfriend on the head, too, before the viral attack. The TikTok user shared several more clips of footage from the Ring camera, showing several people passing in and out of the door without realizing there was a snake hiding right on top.
"If I saw a video of me not noticing a snake like that, I would be paranoid for the rest of my life walking through doors," someone commented on one of the TikToks.
RELATED: 8 Things in Your Yard That Are Attracting Snakes to Your Home.
But the snake wasn't venomous.
iStockAfter TikTok users flooded to the comment sections of Haven's videos to check on his family, he said that they were all fine following the incident. In one of his replies, Haven explained that it was "just a rat snake."
While this species of snakes may be large, it's not venomous, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
"Eastern Ratsnakes are not dangerous to people or pets, but they will readily bite to defend themselves," the organization explains on its website. "These snakes are not aggressive and avoid direct contact with people and pets."
More and more people are getting bitten by snakes hiding around their homes.
tzahiV / iStockHaven's family was lucky to encounter a non-venomous snake. Recently, there have been all kinds of venomous snake incidents popping up at homes across the country.
Back in May, multiple copperhead snakes were found hiding in homes in Georgia and Virginia. Then in June, a copperhead bitJeffrey Wilkins at his home in Monroe Country, Tennessee, local ABC-affiliate WATE reported.
The venomous snake was hiding on the ground near Wilkins' front gate, which he had gone to check to make sure it was locked.
"I turned about right here and took maybe two-step and it laid right here, and that's when it got me," he told WATE.
The copperhead caught Wilkins' leg, and the pain was so intense, he fell down immediately and had to call his wife to get rushed to the emergency room.
These are just some of the reports being made lately—and they're not likely to stop any time soon, as new research has found that the chances of getting bitten by a venomous snake are higher than ever before.
According to the July 11 study published in the GeoHealth journal, the risk of being bit by a venomous snake increases nearly 6 percent for every one degree Celsius the temperature rises.
"Our results show that we need to spend more effort understanding the potential health burdens from snakebite in the context of climate change," lead author Noah Scovronick, PhD, an assistant professor of environmental health at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, said in a press release.
