Disclaimer: DanBilly & KirstyLou, don’t read this or if you do just try to keep in mind that viper venom kills!
It was a dark and rainy night, and we were about 2/3 of the way home from Berberati. We had spent the day running errands and going to the bank, and we were enjoying chatting about anything and everything. There was a pretty continual and very awesome lightning show going on, making at least one of us nervous, and we were ready to be home. We were on the worst part of the dirt road, meaning a speed of about 25 mph, maybe. Kim spotted a huge Gabon viper in the road, and because a bite from one of those could easily mean death, even for a full grown person, he backed up and ran over it with our truck. It was not exactly the most humane killing, as it took a couple of backing ups to take care of the snake, but it was over within minutes. People walk along that road, in the dark, without flashlights or lamps or snake dispatching tools in their hands, so Kim might have saved someone’s life. We passed a couple of guys on a motorcycle heading towards the snake a bit later, and Kim described where it was, so they would be able to pick it up and enjoy a bit of protein for their evening meal. I have seen a few Gabon vipers, but this was the biggest, even topping the one Roy and Sam encountered in Tibati, Cameroon, a few years’ back.
