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Girl rescued from drain pipe where she came face-to-face with 2 snakes

"She chose Southlake Police and Fire, baby."

SOUTHLAKE, Texas — An adventure unraveled on the Twitter account of Southlake DPS (as it usually does) describing the rescue of a little girl who was stuck in a drainage pipe. She came face-to-face with a couple of rat snakes, police said Thursday.

Tori and Carly wanted to play outside after being stuck in quarantine. It was all fun and games until Tori crawled into a drainage pipe, police said.

"Even though that’s specifically against Mom’s rules," Southlake DPS tweeted. "She climbed through the tight tunnel, probably patted herself on the back for her Shawshank Redemptioning-like shimmying, & then turned around to go back down the pipe to get out."

Then she saw it: a black snake.

"I found out later her sister told her it's probably a water moccasin. I don't think that helped," said Nikki, their mother.

"We know now they were rat snakes, but imagine for a second poor Tori feeling like she was in the snake pit of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first movie of the Indiana Jones trilogy. Yeah we said it. Crystal Skull doesn’t count."

The Texas Rat Snake is the most commonly encountered snake in the state and is harmless. They're completely nonvenomous and don't attack people, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Tori tried to go to the other drainage pipe, but then she saw that there was another snake there too, Southlake DPS said. The sister, Carly, ran to tell mom who tried to take off the grate and couldn't. Tori could either crawl past the snakes or call police -- she chose the latter.

Southlake police got there in minutes and quickly got the grate off.

"I was mostly excited to make fun of her. I call her the 'snake grate girl,'" said Carly.

"Snake People—no snakes were harmed! Southlake citizens—we’re always here for you in a quick and timely matter, no matter what!  Be safe today in Southlake and beyond!" Southlake DPS tweeted.

 "I kept them out of [the storm drain] for 10 years. I'll call that a parenting win," said Nikki.

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