Jimmy Canhan sacked from job after speeding battle with deadly snake

Speeding driver 'Jimmy' told police he wasn't able to brake as he was fighting off a deadly brown snake with a knife. Photo / Queensland Police

The Queensland man who went viral after fighting off a deadly brown snake while speeding down a motorway has been sacked from his job over the incident.

Boyne Island man James "Jimmy" Canhan was pulled over by police for driving 123km/h in a 100km/h zone last week, telling a shocking story in which he described having a brown snake in the ute.

Now, the Courier Mail reports the technician was told afterwards he didn't have a job and his company would come and collect the staff car.

"My boss called me and said I didn't have a job anymore, when I was just spending time with my daughter Annabelle, who lives with her mum in Townsville, and didn't have work on anyway," he told the newspaper.

"I had a company car, so I sold my own car and now I'm left with nothing to drive.

"So now I've got no job and I have my daughter to help support.

"My dog needs to go to vet for his ear, and I just want to get my finances sorted out to pay for it."

He's now looking for any kind of work and has experience in a range of customer service sectors, from bar service to working in mining and with broadband network provider NBN.

Last week, the outrageous video of Jimmy taken on the Dawson Highway in northern Queensland went viral after he described the deadly animal in his cab to a police officer.

"A brown snake or a tiger snake, it's in the back of the ute," he says. "It was in the ute with me, I think it's bitten me," he said.

Speeding driver 'Jimmy' told police he wasn't able to brake as he was fighting off a deadly brown snake with a knife. Photo / Queensland Police

The officer moved to the back of the ute, where a large brown snake was bleeding and lying across the back tray.

Jimmy said the snake had slithered into his car through the gear stick before wrapping around his legs.

"The more I moved my legs ... it just started to wrap around me," he said.

"Its head just started striking at the [driver's seat] chair, between my legs."

When Jimmy was finally able to pull over for police, the snake was laid across the back of his ute, and he feared he'd been bitten. Photo / Queensland Police

Jimmy used a seat belt and a work knife he had nearby to fight off the snake and then began driving towards the hospital, believing he had been bitten.

Jimmy later told the Courier Mail that he was "facing death either way" from speeding down the highway or being bitten by the snake.

"I just had to calculate my own survival, it was just the primal instinct that came to me.

"I had no other thoughts in my head but get this thing out of here," he said.

The snake must have got into his car at his last job of the day, when he left his door open.

"It was like something out of the Chamber of Secrets was sitting on my passenger seat, it was massive," he said.

"It just unfurled like this octopus as soon as it knew I knew it was there, and it was on!

Paramedics were called to the scene and determined he had not been bitten, but was suffering from shock.

"Yeah it was pretty bloody terrifying, I'm not going to lie," he said.

The eastern brown snake is one of the deadliest in the world.

Although its venom is not as deadly as the reclusive Australian inland taipan, it is a fast-moving, aggressive snake responsible for more deaths each year across the nation than any other snake.

Jimmy was not charged over the incident.