Simon the snail RIP

An East Tyrone joiner was this morning lauded ‘a modern-day hero’ after he removed a snail from the side of a metal bucket as it headed towards the mouth of the filled vessel. 

Petesy Carberry, who has played down the incident as ‘one of those things anyone would do’, admitted he was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of congratulations and well-wishers since his feat went viral on YouTube:

“It was one of those things that you didn’t think much about at the time. I had just put the kettle on and went outside to the toilet when I saw the slime from the snail making a trail across the yard and right up to the bucket. I just went over and tried talking the snail down but it still edged up to the rim. I could stand it no more and just flicked it off.”

Carberry’s son, Petesy Jnr, recorded the whole incident on his phone from the top window and posted it on YouTube. Until the time of writing, it had been viewed over 7m times with comments such as ‘wow‘, ‘Will you marry me?’ and ‘I’m in tears here‘ posted in the section below the video.

Carberry has already been booked to appear on the various chat shows across the globe as well as odds-on favourite for some form of acknowledgement from the Queen of England which he says he will turn down publicly but may accept in private.

The snail, named Simon by fans, has since been put down after destroying Carberry’s lettuces.