Nicky Paris felt a tickle on his foot while wading in the water at Crystal Cove State Beach. Then moments later, he saw a rattlesnake slither up from the sea and onto the sand at Crystal Cove State Beach.
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Paris, a stand-up comedian and TV host, was at the secluded beach for the first time, a recommendation from ChatGPT for the best place for a quick getaway from the Los Angeles grind.
“It almost feels like I’ve been set up to be murdered by technology,” he said jokingly via cell phone between media interviews on Aug. 26. “The one day I’m trying to have peace, this is crazy.”
Video he posted of the snake sighting on Aug. 19 has gone viral with news outlets throughout the country picking up on the story, as he comically recounted the unlikely encounter.
The video shows a seagull snatching his chip bag, and then the snake slowly moving through the sand.
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“This is a wake-up call for everybody at the beach who are on the phone, you’re tanning, you’re not paying attention,” he said. “Look down, be aware.”
Paris said he’s been around a lot of wildlife lately, recently feeding kangaroos in Australia, so he wasn’t scared.
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“I feel bad; I was actually at his house,” Paris said. “I knew it wasn’t going to hurt me, it’s like the woman in King Kong at the end.”
But Paris added that he was glad he wasn’t on his towel, where he had been just minutes earlier, right where the snake headed as it went into the brush toward the hills.
He said he alerted two other girls on the beach— joking that it was like a game of telephone and up to them to warn others — before packing up his stuff and heading home.
“I couldn’t get over that they swim,” he said. “The poor thing was so hot, I’m assuming.”
It’s not the first time a rattlesnake has crossed paths with beachgoers at Crystal Cove; a grandmother needed treatment after being struck by a snake a decade ago.
According to the California Fish and Wildlife Department, rattlesnakes do swim, warning on its website: “Do not grab ‘sticks’ in the water.”
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