There are bad days, and then there are “a giant snake just disappeared into the undercarriage of your car” days. For Bulmaro Martinez of Victoria, Texas, those turned out to be the same day. A couple of weeks ago, Martinez was loading up his family for what was presumably a perfectly ordinary evening out when they spotted a massive snake slithering its way underneath their SUV. And then, because snakes apparently have flair for the dramatic, it vanished completely into the vehicle’s undercarriage.
Most of us would have called an Uber right then and there. Or possibly moved. But Martinez held it together, and the next morning, the situation had not improved. The snake was still very much in residence and showing zero interest in vacating the premises voluntarily. No amount of coaxing, waiting, or hoping the problem would just go away on its own was working.
So Martinez did what any reasonable person does when they have a six-foot mystery reptile embedded in their vehicle: he drove it to the dealership. Specifically, Victory GMC in Victoria, Texas, where the staff were about to have a very different kind of Tuesday than they’d planned for.
What followed was a multi-step process that started with an inspection finding nothing at all, which is both reassuring and somehow more unsettling. It was only because Martinez insisted that the team kept looking that they eventually lifted the SUV and discovered exactly what was hissing up at them from the undercarriage.
The Dealership Visit Nobody Will Forget
To the enormous credit of the Victory GMC crew, they didn’t turn Martinez away or suggest he try the wildlife removal place down the street. They leaned in. After lifting the SUV revealed the snake’s hiding spot, staff got to work on removal. It took nearly 10 minutes to get the animal out, which, if you’ve ever spent 10 minutes doing anything stressful, feels like a very long time when there’s an angry snake involved.
The snake measured around 6 feet in length and was not definitively identified on camera. Based on how the person handling it treated the situation, without the frantic energy of someone worried about venom, it appeared to be non-venomous. Once removed, the snake was transported to Riverside Park and released back into the wild, which honestly seems like a gracious ending for an animal that caused so much chaos.
Victoria, Texas Seems to Have a Snake-in-Car Situation
Here is where things get statistically improbable. This is not the first time Victoria has had a snake-meets-automobile situation make the news. Back in August 2025, local resident Onica Valdez found her own uninvited passenger waiting inside her car. She posted a video to Facebook showing a snake slithering directly up her gas pedal before disappearing out of frame. The video went predictably viral, because of course it did.
Two snake-in-vehicle incidents in the same Texas city within about a year of each other raises a few questions, primarily about what exactly is going on in Victoria and whether residents there have developed a special protocol for this kind of thing. At minimum, it suggests that checking your undercarriage before a road trip might be worth adding to the pre-drive checklist, at least in South Texas.
What We Can Actually Learn From This
Beyond the horror and the humor, there are a few genuine takeaways buried underneath the viral moment. First, snakes are more resourceful than most people give them credit for. Vehicle undercarriages are warm, dark, and relatively safe, which makes them genuinely attractive to reptiles looking for a place to hide or rest, particularly in warmer climates.
Second, if you do find yourself in a similar situation, patience and persistence matter. Martinez could have walked away after the first inspection found nothing. Instead, he pushed for a second look, and that’s what actually solved the problem. Third, non-venomous snakes, while deeply unwelcome in your car, are not necessarily a reason to panic. Most snakes people encounter in the American South are harmless, and the best outcome, as demonstrated here, is safe removal and a trip back to nature. And finally: dealership employees apparently have a much wider job description than most of us assume.