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Dear Lord Why Are All These Slime-Covered Eels on the Highway?

Oregon State Police raced to contain the snot-drenched horror scene on Thursday​ with a backhoe and hoses.
Photo via @DepoeBayFire Twitter

A highway near the Oregon coast became an oozy nightmare on Thursday after an overturned truck carrying hagfish—sometimes called "slime eels" or "snot snakes"—saturated the roadway in slime and slithering fish, the Eugene Register-Guard reports.

The truck was carrying around four tons of the hagfish, reportedly transporting them for future resale in Korea, where they are skinned for leather and eaten.

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Hagfish may be delicious and make some wonderful wallets or whatever, but they also secrete slime that can expand when they get stressed out—according to SeattlePI, fishermen have to be careful not to drown in the disgusting goop.

Unfortunately (and understandably), the snot snakes must have been pretty stressed after the truck they were carried in rear-ended some cars and spilled all 13 containers of them, because their ooze drenched the roadway like a dastardly plot by the villain from the original Power Rangers movie.

Video of the subsequent five-car pile-up shows scores of hagfish zipping across the asphalt as the Oregon State Police try to contain the slime-drenched horror scene with a backhoe and hoses.

Only one person suffered minor injuries in the crash, but everyone involved will likely be haunted by nightmares of eels slithering through seas of sticky goop for years to come. At least the hagfish were able to avoid their leathery fate, so that's something.