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CNN (Atlanta, Georgia) 05 September 06 14-foot pet snake kills owner
Lanesville, Indiana (AP) -- A 14-foot pet python crushed its owner to death, authorities said Tuesday after finding the snake loose in a southern Indiana shed with the man's body.
Patrick Von Allmen, 23, was found Monday evening in the shed near Lanesville, about 15 miles west of Louisville, Kentucky.
A medical examiner determined that the death was consistent with asphyxiation caused by compression of the neck and chest, Conservation Officer Mark Farmer said.
"When you're dealing with a wild animal species, you take on a certain amount of risk," he said.
Von Allmen had told family members he was going to treat the snake for a medical condition, Farmer said. He was alone in the shed with the python for about three hours before his body was found.
Relatives said Von Allmen had 10 to 12 years of experience handling reptiles, according to authorities. The family got the snake as a pet five months ago, Farmer said.
Indiana law does not restrict ownership of snakes, and the python was returned to the family.
http://www.wane.com/Global/story.asp?S=5366527&nav=0RYb

FORT WAYNE NEWS SENTINEL (Fort Wayne, Indiana) 05 September 06 Man caring for python found dead in southern Indiana
Lanesville, Ind. (AP): A 23-year-old man who was caring for a 14-foot snake in southern Indiana was found dead Monday night.
Officials did not know how the man died and would not speculate. The body of the man, identified as Patrick Von Allmen, was to go to the Kentucky medical examiner's office in Louisville for an autopsy Tuesday.
Mark Farmer, an Indiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman, said Von Allmen was found in a shed in Lanesville and that the 14-foot reticulated python was found loose in the shed.
The snake was captured and returned to the man's family.
Indiana law doesn't restrict ownership of pythons because they are non-venemous. They kill their prey by squeezing it.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/local/15442869.htm

WHAS (Louisville, Kentucky) 05 September 06 Family says man's snake death "freak accident"
Patrick Von Allmen's love of snakes came from his father, who raised them for years.
Patrick himself grew and built most of the operation inside his shed, spending most of his waking hours down there. It was there last night that one of those snakes killed him.
In photos the coroner shared exclusively with WHAS11 News, you can see inside that shed are about a dozen snakes.
Patrick's 12-year-old brother discovered his body. The python was recovered from a box on a shelf. The family says Patrick was treating the snake for “mouth rot.”
“Whether the boy was attempting to clear the wound, whatever, I have no idea. Possibly the boy was working with the snake, it became agitated. We don't really know. We'll never know,” says Harrison County Coroner Stephen Hamm.
Patrick was planning to breed the female with this male python. Some offspring can fetch about $1,000.
The family says they will get rid of at least those bigger snakes.
The Louisville Zoo no longer has a reticulated python. They do have a 14-foot Burmese python, which is about the same size as the one that killed Patrick.
The zoo says they try to handle it on a regular basis so it's used to human interaction and will not act out aggressively. Zoo policy is for two keepers to handle such snakes in case something goes awry.
The snakes do not actually crush you. It's when you exhale and the breath comes out, the snake will tighten and then it makes it harder for you to inhale and each time you do that, you take less and less air in, until you finally pass out.
Patrick's family says this was not an irresponsible activity. Patrick raised snakes as other family members raised pigeons at their house. In fact, they won some ribbons for their pigeons at the Kentucky State Fair. They say what happened last night was a freak accident.
Family says man's snake death "freak accident"

That's really sad what happened to him. However, it is also not good to hear the family defend the guy's decision to solo treat the snake. It doesn't matter how much experience you think you have...good experience dictates that a snake that big ought to be handled by at least two people...or at a minimum there should have been someone on hand in case things got nasty.
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