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"

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