'I was queasy': Couple find cooked snake in oven while baking pizza

A pizza dinner turned into a nightmare for a North Carolina couple who found a snake in their oven.

Amber and Robert Helm realized the oven in their Wake Forest home was smoking Monday night about 10 minutes after popping in a pizza to cook, according to WRAL-TV.

“I opened up the oven and thought, ‘Is that part of the oven?’ I looked more closely, and it was a snake,” Amber told the Raleigh News & Observer Wednesday.

Robert said the snake was about 18 inches long and about the diameter of a quarter. The couple aren’t sure how the snake got into the oven.

“I was queasy, and it was creepy,” Robert told WRAL. “There’s nothing good about finding a smokey snake in your oven.”

Amber decided to take her sons, ages 3 and 1, out to eat while her husband threw out the pizza snake and cleaned the oven.

The Helms said their oven had been snake-free when they baked a ham on Christmas, and they plan on bringing in experts to find out how the reptile got there.

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“I have two little boys, so I’m just so concerned,” Amber said. “Every time I see a shadow, I’m like freaking out.”

Contributing: The Associated Press.

Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: North Carolina couple find snake in oven while baking pizza