CHESAPEAKE -- As Debbie Vardaro hit her back door, she happened to glance down and see a rattle -- not the kind a baby uses.
"I was terrified, to say the least," Vardaro told 13News. "We have Black Snakes, Garter Snakes, but Canebrakes, you don't expect to see. It was amazing, scary, but amazing."
Vardaro started calling neighbors in Jolliff Woods. She said she also dialed 911, but was told there was nothing the city could do to help her, that she should look for a private company or group to round up the snake which has a potentially fatal bite.
As she began making other calls, Vardaro found that she was dealing with a double intrusion.
"I turned to look back at my car, 'cause the first snake was across the street, and I said, 'Oh, my gosh! There's another one!' and I started crying at that point," recalled Vardaro.
Her calls, eventually, put her in touch with Jared Watts, a herpetologist who is part of Wildlife Rescue, Inc., a volunteer network of professionals which handles thousands of wildlife round-ups a year.
"One of the largest Canebrakes I've ever seen in my life," Watts said of the male snake, "and I've seen hundreds and hundreds of Canebrake Rattlesnakes in person."
Watts estimates the male was about 6 feet long. The other snake, a pregnant female, was more than 5 feet in length. He believes the pair came from wetlands that border the community.
When Vardaro got in touch with Watts, he was at dinner with his wife. They had taken his wife's car, so he didn't have his usual wrangling gear.
"She is nice enough to carry, just for me, a hook in the trunk and a box in the trunk, just in case it happens to be a venomous snake," Watts said.
Vardaro's son, Al, recorded the wrangling that took place in a neighbor's yard where the snakes ended up.
"I have, in the past, got them both into a tackle box. I did not want to press that with such large rattlesnakes," explained Watts. "Those were, I would say, the top 5% of Canebrakes I've ever seen, size-wise."
Watts got one in his tackle box. A neighbor brought a plastic lidded box.
"Once the lids closed, they, you could hear the sigh of relief," shared Watts.
"It happened Monday. Monday night, I couldn't sleep a whole lot. Tuesday, I wouldn't come out in the backyard, but, now, I'm in the backyard again," said Vardaro. "I just look very carefully where I step and look around the yard."
Watts turned over the snakes to the state, which will release them into the wild.
