GREGG TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- By now, many of you have heard about the 73-year-old great-grandmother from Bucks County. On Monday, she encountered a cobra snake in her backyard. Kathy Kehoe believes the snake escaped from a neighboring apartment, and she killed it with a shovel to protect nearby children.
"To just walk out and find somebody to help her, the snake could slither away, and you wouldn't have any clue where it was, so I think in a home you have to kill it," Clyde Peeling said.
Clyde Peeling owns Clyde Peeling's Reptiland near Allenwood. He is an expert when it comes to venomous snakes, and even showed us this cobra which is similar to the one Kehoe came across.
"Grabbing something with a long enough handle, that they're not going to get bitten in the process," Peeling said.
Even so, Peeling says if you encounter a venomous snake in the wild, just walk away and give it some space.
"Just step around it, they're not going to attack you," Peeling said.
Cobras are native to Asia, so it's not likely you will encounter one around here. There are three venomous snakes in Pennsylvania, the timber rattlesnake, the Copperhead, and the Massasauga.
People Newswatch 16 spoke with aren't sure what they would do if they came face to face with a venomous snake. Anna Marie Leavens of Elysburg saw a snake in her pool recently but did not know what kind it was.
"I just took it with my net and took it out and saved its life because I didn't want it to drown. That's what I did but I didn't know what it was," Leavens said.
"I think I would get really scared and maybe run, or if I did have a shovel like that woman I may put the shovel on it," Karen Crane said.
According to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, you are allowed to kill a venomous snake if it's in defense of your life, but you must report it to authorities. If you do get bitten by a venomous snake, call 911 immediately.