Interesting story, though it sounds like it got a bit too close for comfort there toward the end. I suppose the following story would have to be my worst experience with snakes so far, but hey it, it made the front page of the local newspaper!
I was giving an educational presentation to the local EMTs and paramedics of this area (Russellville, Arkansas). It was mostly over venomous snakes and what they should do when called to a snake-bite accident. I brought a number of native pit vipers, as well as some exotic elapids (cobras and such) because they wanted to see them. I also brought my 9'9" southern scrub python female to give a small talk about the dangers of keeping large constrictors and what to do if called to a "giant snake attack" incident. I pulled her out of her giant Rubbermaid container and things were going really well for a while. I got a lot of ooohhhs and ahhhss over her amazing irrdescence, size, and beauty. Anyone that has ever seen a large scrub python in person knows that it's a sight one just needs to behold at some point in life. Anyway, I digress. I guess the ride over to the place we were giving the talk had ticked her off a little, and when my partner moved and she noticed it, she took a swing at him. She missed, or rather she didn't have enough slack to get him (major heat seekers like scrubs never miss unless something makes them!), but at the same time she firmly grabbed onto the table with the last third of her body. After the strike and the reaction from the audience, I knew it was time to put her up. I reached down to pull her body off the table and someone asked me a question. I made the all too common mistake of looking away for a split second and before I knew what hit me, bam, I felt teeth....lots...and lots....of big....teeth. She had bit my forearm, and I'm not a huge person but she was a huge snake so her mouth was big enough to literally almost wrap all the way around my arm. I was just kind of shocked for a minute, and rather surprised that I didn't have a lot of pain...until she tried to pull her mouth off and realized her bottom teeth were firmly stuck in my skin, which she had to rip a good deal to get them out. As soon as she let go I immediately grabbed behind her head for fear that she'd tag me again, my partner, or one of the paramedics that was coming over to offer assistance (though most of them said "You get her put back in that container, and we'll patch you back up"
. When I grabbed her head she wrapped her body VERY tightly around the bitten arm, causing it to seeth blood that was now almost flowing onto the floor. A scrub her size, I would estimate had teeth around 1/4" long, and went every bit of the way into my arm. It took me and my partner about 5 minutes to finally pull her off my arm so that we could get her back into the container. At this time I quickly realized that had I been the only one around in that situation, I would have been in trouble. She would not have let go until I let her head go and let her move away of her own accord...probably after a few more bites. This was only an almost 10' scrub, so imagine what a 14 to 15' burm or retic would be like to get off. Anyway, we got her put up and they took me into the bathroom to clean and wrap my very bloody arm, which now exhibited an odd knot around the size of a silver dollar right under the skin, most likely a burst vessel from her teeth. I emerged from the bathroom a little shaken but not too bad, and finished the talk. I'd say the "dangers of large constrictors" hit right at home with all the folks in that room that day. They cheered at the end of the talk and congratulated us, so I guess we did well. The very next day on the front page of the Courier, Russellville's newspaper, was a picture of me holding the scrub out at arm's length, probably a minute or so before she nailed me. The opening paragraph to the story "...and obviously irritated, the snake quickly coiled and struck (Chance) Duncan's other arm..." Gotta love the media for sensationalism. I work at Wal-Mart as a cashier, and that day I had a lot of people asking why I wasn't at the hospital recovering from the poison. So I guess the presentation did a bit of good two-fold: the paramedics got what they needed to hear about snakebite and dangerous pet herps, and lots of local people learned that pythons aren't "pasnus." The End.
-Chance