Speeding tradie fights off deadly snake with knife

Speeding driver 'Jimmy' told police he wasn't able to brake as he was fighting off a deadly brown snake with a knife. Photo / Queensland Police

A speeding Aussie tradie told police he couldn't have slowed down his car because he was fighting off a deadly brown snake with a knife as he drove along the Dawson Highway in northern Queensland last month.

In outrageous, but real, vision, the tradesman, named "Jimmy", is pulled over by police for driving 123km/h in a 100km/h zone.

"A brown snake or a tiger snake, it's in the back of the ute," he says. "It was in the ute with me, I think it's bitten me."

Speeding driver 'Jimmy' told police he wasn't able to brake as he was fighting off a deadly brown snake with a knife. Photo / Queensland Police

The officer moved to the back of the ute, where a large brown snake was bleeding and lying across the back tray.

Jimmy said the snake had slithered into his car through the gear stick before wrapping around his legs.

When Jimmy was finally able to pull over for police, the snake was laid across the back of his ute, and he feared he'd been bitten. Photo / Queensland Police

"The more I moved my legs … it just started to wrap around me.," he said.

"Its head just started striking at the [driver's seat] chair, between my legs."

Jimmy used a seat belt and a work knife he had nearby to fight off the snake and then began driving towards the hospital, believing he had been bitten.

Paramedics were called to the scene and determined he had not been bitten, but was suffering from shock.

Jimmy said the snake was striking at the seat, between his legs. Photo / Queensland Police

"Yeah it was pretty bloody terrifying, I'm not going to lie," he said.

The eastern brown snake is one of the deadliest in the world.

Although its venom is not as deadly as the reclusive Australian inland taipan, it is a fast-moving, aggressive snake responsible for more deaths each year across the nation than any other snake.

Jimmy was not charged.