Thanks everyone
It was a truly unique experience... left me with a solemn feeling.
mtratcliffe wrote:Were the ones in the membrane still alive?
In the 2nd picture of the snakes inside the membrane, there's an individual who's stretched out along the bottom and has his head curled underneath his body and out of sight. In the 3rd and 4th pic, his head is visible. That one was aggressively crawling around in there, looking for a way out. I wish I would have filmed it, but there was a lot going on all at once and I felt like I had limited time. He was the one who eventually poked through in the video. I was hesitant to remove them from the amniotic sack (if that's what it's called?) at first and instead tried to coax them to do it themselves. When I wasn't holding a camera or my cellphone for video, I was gently unraveling the sack and delicately examining & extracting. The coiled up individual in the 1st picture of the membrane, I removed myself from what looked like a 2nd chamber or pocket of the sack. As you can see he was covered in fluid and just sat there awhile
* adjusting to the new environment. He lived along with the other one who finally poked himself through in the video. I finally ended up pinching a hole in the sack to extract the others. When I did, the first one out gasped for air and it looked like it's lungs collapsed. The whole extent of the upper half body caved in to the ribcage. I think he was either underdeveloped or maybe the shock of being removed caused it... He may have been damaged when the mother was run over as well. My guess is it was because of the transfer from liquid to oxygen too quickly. The other one I removed didn't have that reaction, but it didn't look to have survived either. It fell limp when I picked it up and it never moved. However, I still put that one over in the grass and covered in with a little canopy of dried weeds just in case it woke up later on
*
* I didn't want to include this in the first paragraph because it would have been too jumbled and distracting. There were a couple experiences I had when I was a young boy that lead up to me kinda knowing how to handle this situation. I figured I'd share them for some more in depth insight. When I was a kid, I had a pet gartersnake that had a broken back. One day I noticed he had accidently fallen into the water dish and
drown... I pulled him out and continually nudged and poked at him, letting him lie there awhile, then nudging him again, all the time praying for it to live. After about 5-10 minutes of that, he snapped out of it and looked like he had regurgitated water. He just laid there and in about an hour he was back to normal. Another time I was visiting an aunt in Oregon for Thanksgiving for a week while school was out. It was raining off and on the whole time I was there. When the storm had died down, I went out during the day exploring and found some kind of Ensatina in the firewood pile and there were Newts crawling all over the wet street. Eventually I came across an overflowing creek in a field and saw a 2 ft gopher snake belly up on the embankment. It reminded me of E.T. I thought at first that it must have gotten flooded out and then left on the land when the water levels went down. Then I remembered that pet gartersnake experience... so, I picked him up. He fell limp and never moved. I took him back to my aunts cottage where we were staying and wrapped him it up in the blanket on my bed. I sat there with it for at least 20 minutes, holding it on my lap rubbing it softly with the blanket until eventually started moving. I ended up letting it go under the house because my granddad wouldn't let me take another snake home
Because of those two experiences prior to this, I had a little something to go on... So, if a reader out there comes across a similar situation, maybe this will help
I knew the one covered in liquid would most likely eventually adapt himself and felt it was best not to rush that. I feel like there still may be a chance for the other to have revived himself... maybe not though.
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
DOR fitchi C-section by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation, on Flickr
I like your avatar. I used to work for a custom fireplace mantel installation company that had a logo nearly identical to it.
Thanks for the info! I really had no clue what I was doing other than, something... no prior experience except for gutting my own fish when I was a kid, after fishing trips. I smelled my hands afterwards expecting to smell musk, but it actually smelled EXACTLY like a sunfish 
Not too bad. I haven't fished in over 10 years, so in a weird way it kinda brought back some nice old memories.
