THE LEDGER (Lakeland, Florida) 05 April 06 Once Bitten, Not Shy - Show Goes On Despite Reptile-Inflicted Injuries (Rick Rousos)
Photo at URL: Chris Hart with his 9 foot alligator named Tunaka at the Market World Flea Market in Auburndale (David Mills)
Auburndale: Chris Hart has no problem flashing a one thumb-up sign. Two thumbs up? Well, that's a problem because of a nasty alligator called Tunaka.
Tunaka, 9-feet long and 300 pounds, made a snack of Hart's right thumb.
Despite this setback, Hart's reptile show goes on.
Tunaka shares center stage with Hart, 33, in "Hart of the Wild" at Market World flea market in Auburndale. The show has a conservation theme and some dangerous stunts, like Hart sticking his head in a gator's mouth.
Hart has been on the business end of countless reptile bites. He warns his audience not to call 911 if he's bitten by Ana the Anaconda or another of his snakes.
Hart tells the audience that he's got at least an hour and a half to get to a hospital for snake bite treatment, so summoning an ambulance isn't necessary.
"Polk County said they were going to start charging us for any more 911 calls," he tells the crowd.
Hart's right hip was replaced years ago because of a gator bite he received while working at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Ga. His left hip sports a wicked scar from the same attack. Hart has forgotten the name of the gator that nailed him.
But he hasn't forgotten when Tunaka chomped his throat last year, leaving a sizable scar, when the two were posing for publicity pictures.
As he does during his shows, Hart stuck his chin inside Tunaka's mouth, but Tunaka's jaws were a fraction of a second faster than Hart's attempted getaway.
There are a couple of ways of looking at it, Hart said.
One, he would be minus his lower jaw if the gator had gotten another inch closer. Two, and the way Hart much prefers to see it, another inch farther "and he would have missed me completely."
And now, aside from the numerous scrapes on his legs and arms, Hart's most recent injury was his May 2005 thumb mishap.
Hart was feeding Tunaka chicken when the gator charged him. Hart stopped Tunaka's quick advance by extending his right arm, but the gator chomped town on the tip of his thumb, then thrashed his jaws back and forth.
The result was that Hart was left with the lower two-thirds of his thumb bone only. The top third, along with skin and tissue from the whole thumb, was perched in Tunaka's open mouth.
Hart's wife, Amanda, who works as his sidekick in the shows, grabbed a training prod and used it like a hockey stick, whacking the thumb out of Tunaka's mouth with a perfect slap shot.
It was cleaned by a doctor, who said there was no way he could stitch it back on because of the threat of infection.
So Hart said he did what he learned when he was raised around people who worked with dangerous animals for a living. The cure took months: a regimen including peroxide for cleaning, Preparation H to shrink swollen tissue and Krazy Glue to bind the tissues.
The results are mixed. His right thumb is a third of an inch shorter than his left. He can't bend it, it moves slowly and generates little strength.
"But I can hold a cup of coffee," said Hart, ever the optimist.
On the plus side, it doesn't look too bad, his thumbnail grew back and it beats not having a thumb.
Hart said Tunaka is clever.
"He never pulls this stuff when the audience is here, he doesn't like the odds," he said. "But when I'm alone with him, or there's just a few people around . . ."
So why not get rid of Tunaka? Take him over to Saddle Creek one night and let him loose with other gators?
"It wouldn't do any good," Hart said. "Gators are all the same once they've been fed by people. They all want to kill you."
Amanda Hart, 24, met her husband at Wild Adventures, where he performed and she worked in a gift shop.
She's a participant, albeit a nervous one, in the free "Hart of the Wild" shows, held at noon and 2 p.m. every Friday through Sunday at Market World.
On a recent Sunday, Chris Hart stuck his chin into the mouth of Tunaka while Amanda Hart put her hand in the gator's mouth. Sometimes the couple uses Gutter, a 4-foot gator.
Amanda Hart said, while she and her husband are in jeopardy of being bitten, she's not particularly concerned about his safety.
"The only thing I'm afraid of is losing my hand," she said with a laugh.
Despite his mishaps, Hart has a way with the snakes and gators in his show.
Before each performance, he asks people in the audience if they'd like to see a gator bite him.
On a recent Sunday, half the people raised their hands.
"They're here for one reason," Hart said. "Danger."
While the shows are entertaining, Hart also gives people a hearty dose of conservation and explains the damage done to the food chain when a species becomes extinct.
The Harts say they have a deal with a sponsor, Sonic of Lakeland, to do shows heavy on conservation in Polk County's schools.
The thought of "Hart of the Wild" in schools might alarm some parents, but Hart said he won't bring the only legitimate menace in his reptile entourage into any schools: Tunaka.
Once Bitten, Not Shy