STUPIDITY (Part IV)

This is the fourth of a serious of articles on acts of stupidity. We all make stupid mistakes during our lifetimes but some people make really stupid mistakes so it is a wonder they have survived. Unfortunately, some didn’t.What amazes me is the stupidity of people who keep dangerous snakes as pets.

A 19-year-old Bronx, New York, resident recently was killed in November 1996 after his pet python, who lived with him in an apartment, strangled him to death. Grant Williams was discovered by his next-door neighbor, who came out of her apartment to find Williams face down with blood coming from his mouth in the doorway of his apartment. Emergency workers had to pry the 13-foot-long, 44-pound, five inch-thick beige and brown Burmese python from Williams, body. He died an hour later of asphyxia due to compression of the neck by the snake after he was rushed to the Jacobi Hospital. The snake had wrapped itself in part around the victim’s neck and he suffocated to death.

If, as the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure, then surely residents of the Church St. and Weston Rd. neighbourhood of Toronto learned that one snake's heaven is an entire community's nightmare. For months, during 2006, an escaped spitting cobra has been slithering through a local townhouse, causing two families to leave their homes and giving animal control officials headaches because of its elusive ways. The venomous reptile had been enjoying its vacation away from captivity by hiding out in the walls of the home. The creature belonged to one of the building's tenants. To make a long story short, the owner of the house lost thousands of dollars in potential income from tenants who didn’t want to live in a house where a snake was slithering about. The 39-year-old owner of the snake was also a pet store owner. He was sentenced to jail for a year for having the snake in his apartment.

On April 27, 2006, an Austalian man was in intensive care after being bitten by his own death adder overnight. The 53-year-old from Hazelbrook was bitten twice on the hand by the death adder when he opened a cage at his home to inspect the snake. Australia has some of the deadliest snakes in the world and it's one of them. The man was initially treated at Liverpool Hospital with two doses of death adder anti-venom before he was airlifted to Nepean Hospital.

In December 2006, in the city of Cincinnati, a 13-foot boa constrictor throttled its owner to death. A friend found Ted Dres, 48 inside the snake’s cage. The snake still had a strangle hold on Dres when deputies arrived, and the officers had to work with members of an animal protection group to remove it.

In November 2007, a 23-year-old man Pagtrick Allmen, living in Lanesville, Indiana was found dead alone in shed with a 14-foot snake wrapped around him. His pet python crushed him to death.

On the 27th of May, 2008 a pet shop worker in Essex, England, faced an agonising four-day fight for life after he was bitten by one of the world's deadliest snakes. Lee Thompson, 26, had been handling reptiles since childhood and was never bitten once. But when one finally sank its fangs into his thumb, it was a common death adder ---- one of the ten most poisonous snakes on the planet. While an anti-venom drug for the Australian species was available, it took hours to arrive. The father of two hovered close to death for four days as his kidneys failed. The common death adder is the fastest-striking of all Australian snakes and can be up to three feet in length. The common death adder's poison is so dangerous that nearly two-thirds of human bite victims die if they aren’t given antivenom in time. Thompson pulled through, returned to work a week later and he said that he planned to keep the 16-inch adder as a pet.

A 31-year-old Montreal woman discovered a snake under her bed one night in July 2008. She was woken shortly before midnight by sounds coming from beneath her bed in her downtown apartment. When she reached under the bed, she felt what she believed was a snake. She then turned on her lights and found a python, an other deadly venomous snake lurking under her bed. She wasn’t injured but she certainly was frightened. Who the snake belonged too, no one knew.

A poisonous African snake with the longest fangs of any reptile was unaccounted for after biting a Winnipeg 31-year-old man in the face on October 20, 2008. Just one drop of venom from the Gaboon viper is fatal and eats away at human tissue much like flesh-eating disease. Although the snake is known for its docile nature, it's considered an illegal exotic pet under Winnipeg's bylaws and whoever owns it could be charged. The police had no idea who owned the snake or where it went after it bit the man in his face. He had to wait for an antivenin to be flown in from Toronto before he could be treated and was originally in critical condition. But there was no evidence the snake was living at the man's home and it's not certain where he was when he was bitten. The Gaboon viper lives along the equatorial belt of Africa. The snake's fangs can measure up to four centimetres long and it attacks prey quickly, burying venom deep inside the wound. Vipers can grow rather large, reaching up to almost two metres in length and weighing up to eight kilograms. It strikes faster than the eye can see. Once injected with the snake's poison, a victim's blood stops clotting. There can be blisters, inflammation and swelling to such a degree that amputation of the bitten limb is sometimes the only life-saving option. But a facial injury "is a whole different ball game. Amputation is not an option in this case so antivenin becomes the most important treatment to administer. Antiserums are exorbitantly expensive and have a limited shelf life, so there are only two antivenin centres in Canada.

In October 2008, a woman in Virginia has been found dead, lying next to an empty snake tank. Her 13-foot pet snake was loose in the room, and medical reports say she died from neck compression. In other words, the snake partially coiled itself around her neck thereby causing her to suffocate to death.

On July 8, 2009, a 2.5 metre-long pet Burmese python broke out of its enclosure and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom at a central Florida home. The little girl was already dead when paramedics arrived at about 10 a.m. Charles Jason Darnell, the snake's owner and the boyfriend of Shaiunna's mother, discovered the snake missing from its enclosure. The infant reportedly died when the snake tried to crush her skull, in order to swallow her as food. There were bite marks on her head. What kind of fools would keep such a large snake in their home when there is a baby in the home?

No 250-pound reptile is meant to be kept as a pet. In the wild, Burmese pythons roam through the woods and hunt, and their instincts cannot be squelched by captivity. Left unchecked, domestically kept pythons retain many of their natural qualities. This can turn extremely dangerous when the snake’s wild instincts take over. For years, owners have lost pet dogs, cats and smaller mammals, which would normally suffice as the animal’s diet, but in a household setting proves devastating for owners.

Some of the more dangerous snakes in North America are the coral snake, rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths. These snakes are capable of killing a human being, and should never be kept as a pet. Although very rare, a strike by a coral snake can be quite dangerous for humans and pets alike. Coral snakes inject a nerve toxin that can interfere with breathing. If the bite is severe enough, paralysis can result. Coral snakes and cobras are the primary members of the Elapidae family of snakes, and the coral snake is the only family normally present in the United States, inhabiting the southeastern region including Texas. Coral snakes have a distinctive pattern of color: a red band next to a yellow band. Other, non-venomous snakes may have a similar patter (such as the scarlet king snake), but you can tell the difference by following the adage: "Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black venom lack." Of the 15,000 pets bitten by poisonous snakes each year, only one percent are by coral snakes; the vast majority are by rattlesnakes (a type of pit viper). Would you want one of these snakes as a pet?

An East Naples, Florida man learned the hard way in March 2006 that driving a car and playing with a pet at the same time isn’t a good idea. Especially when that pet is an agitated snake. Courtland Page Johnson, 30, was driving his PT Cruiser on Golden Gate Parkway at about 9 p.m. when the pet snake he had wrapped around his neck attacked his face. An onlooker, Charles Page, told police Johnson was driving erratically and had crashed into several roadwork barricades. Page said Johnson had a snake in his hand at the time of the crash. According to police reports, Johnson initially told police he had crashed into another car that had stopped short in front of him. After a series of questions, Johnson admitted to panicking behind the wheel once his pet snake bit him. Police do not know why Johnson was driving with his pet snake around his neck or the extent of his injuries. According to reports, when police first encountered Johnson, he had numerous small cuts on his body, and freshly dried blood on his forehead and right hand.

I have been told that snakes are very good pets if you get the right kind and you know how to care for them. Where many people mess up with snakes as pets is when they try to keep a venomous snake or larger species of snake.

Owners of exotic snakes are hissing with anger at a new British Columbia law that bans dangerous foreign animals, including large or venomous snakes.

Why do these people want dangerous snakes in their homes? The answer is quite easy. They want to show off. They want their friends to believe that they are brave. Even though the act of owning a venomous snake for a pet is illegal in most areas, possessing dangerous deadly snakes are popular pets in today’s society. Perhaps it is the danger of owning one, or the taboo nature of having one captive, or simply being a show off but more and more people are attempting to keep them as pets at considerable risks to themselves and others.

In my research for this article, I came across one of the strangest messages in the internet I have ever come across. I will present it to you so that you can conclude as I have that this individual who wrote it is a real weirdo. It was published in June 2009.

“I am 20 years of age... I’m a male ... I am actually looking for someone that has a really big snake ... it needs to be big and kinda thick... I do have a dream... its a desire too. It’s been my dream for over 10 years. I have tried to contact someone with a big snake everywhere, and this is my last place to try. Well... I want to be eaten by a snake. Alive and whole. I’m very serious about this, even to the point that I’ve found a way that it can be done. It’s been a fantasy of mine, and I want this very very much. If you reply to this, understand that I am 100% willing to become food for your snake. I swear to you there are no strings attached. I’d like to just get to know you, plan things out a little before doing anything… but I’m really a free, full meal for anyone out there who also fantasizes about feeding their pet snake a living human.”

And you thought all those dimwits who keep deadly snakes as pets were crazy. This guy is the craziest of them all….and the stupidest.