Friday, October 7th. I'm preparing the terrarium for feeding my couple of Broghammerus reticulatus (what a terrific name, thanks to R. Hoser). The female named Gundula is about 6 meters and 100 kg, the male a bit over 4.50 meters. They live in a terrarium 350/170/180 cm, adapted to the main terrarium is a "hiding cage" which measures 130/110/120 cm.
My feeding habits have always been the same ones for the last couple of years, the large female beeing fed in the bigger, the male in the smaller part.
On this day, things started to go wrong with the snakes sitting in the wrong parts of the cage and not ready to change place.
I decided to feed only the male, laying in the bigger part and started to separate the cages. This can be done by moving the top of the hiding cage one or two centimeters to get a small slit, where a vertical gate can be pushed downward.
Feeding the male in the hiding box has been done extremely careful in the past, knowing the snake as sometimes aggressive and waiting for rabbits falling "from the sky".
Before unlocking and moving the top of the hiding box, I watched the female and found it laying on the floor, properly coiled, calm and in no way alert.
Then I made a fatal mistake. Believing the female to stay on the floor and not to react in any way (she's never been fed in the hiding box and I didn't have any contact with rabbits or rats at this day), I obened the top more than necessary, maybe 7 or 8 centimeters. Moving the gate downward with my right hand, I suddenly found it in the snakes jaws and myself in very big troubles.
It took only one or two seconds for the snake to come out completely, pushing away the unlocked top of the cage. Next scene found myself on the floor in front of the terrarium, with some loops around my stomac and upper legs, but fortunately both of my arms free (except the right hand), as I instinctively held them upward at the beginning of the attack.
Next thing to remember was relief, as the snake's unfasten the upper loops around my stomac. Well, I thought, she's recognized her mistake. Actually, I was in error, as I found the upper loops wandering upward to my chest and suddenly beeing tighten again (these guys really know what to do)
At this time I recognized myself to be in danger and started to think about a way out of this problem. There hasn't been fear or panic at anytime (thanks to Adrenaline) and I was able to think clearly.
I decided to have only one chance: to get my hand out of the snakes jaws. Fortunately, I managed to remove the upper jaw almost completely and finally to pull the right hand out of the mouth (there was absolutely no pain at this time.
Now things went very quick: Just beeing released from the jaws, the loops were beeing untightened and the snake moved away almost that fast as starting the attack. Maybe I had some assistance by my small dog, biting the snakes tail.
Next action, catching the dog, out of the room and stopping the bleeding. Then back to the next problem, a giant retic, finding it's ways free in my house. I grabbed the snake on it's neck and led it toward the terrarium (there was still no pain) where the "monster" crawled in without any problems. Here it was again: the "good girl", free from any aggression, as I knew it for 6 or 7 years before.
Final action: Emergency call and a drive by ambulance to my doctor.



Discussion:
a) Reason of the attack
Reticulated pythons, as other pythons too, react instinctively. Beside of "normal" feeding stimuli such as presence, motions or odor of prey animals, prey-attacking behaviour can be triggered off erroneously by small, not always noticeable stimuli or combinations of them too. This can be a motion of the caretaker, a shadow, a vibration, the temperature of the caretakers extremeties and so on.
If once triggered off, this chain of "programmed" action steps (biting, wrapping, pressing) can hardly be stopped or interrupted. Even animals, which have been known as "tame" or friendly for longer periods, can change theyr behaviour completely within parts of seconds.
In our case, maybe the motion of the gate and it's vibrations, the sudden change of lighting conditions, the temperature of my hand or a combination of all this might be responsible.
I have to declare strictly, that the female has never been fed in the hiding cage and I didn't have contact to any mammals before.

b) reactions on attacks
I know coming out of this "enbracement" was based largely upon luck.
Nevertheless I believe that instinctive reactions were involved too in this final happy ending.
As a keeper of mostly "hot" animals, such as venomous snakes and big pythons, i' m spending a lot of time thinking about how to avoid accidents, but how to react on them too.
I spent many hours in the past staying in front of my retic terrarium, regarding my "monsters" and considering how to react on possible attacks.
"Hands up" in order to keep the upper extremeties free sounds plausible and it worked in this case.
It won't be a "live insurance" in every case, because of two reasons:
first, after "removing" the bite, these animals often stop wrapping and pressing, but they don't have to do so in every case, and
second, if bites are situated on the body trunk, they might be covered with loops and cannot be removed, not even with 10 hands.
Sometimes we hear or read about alcohol as support to release snakebites. It's a myth and it won't work on big pythons, gallons of alcohol won't affect a giant retic in it's killing mood after it's deadly work has been triggered off.
Nevertheless, alcohol could be useful after a bite to disinfect your wounds or as a painkiller.

c) conclusion:



(to be continued later)

Gosh! Happy to hear that it had a "happy ending"... Best is to make a proper debriefing after that to know why it happened... Hope the injurys are not to bad?

Cheers
Lucas CARRETERO
LucasC.

Wow, a really enchaining story, Peter.
I read about P. reticulatus (I hate the new name) to be agressive but the here described tempo and consequence to attack a human is really amazing. From all I know a 6m snake is way big enough to get a man into serious troubles. Glad that You kept cool and did the right thing.
I guess one can never reduce risks to zero. Especially when handling so many snakes every day statistics will point out that sometimes there will be incidents. Bad luck if it is a large python or a highly venomous snake.
Maybe a portable, wearable alarm system coupled with a emergency phone call would be a idea if You handle those snakes alone.

Hello Peter,

congratulations for your second birth. I´m glad you managed to get out and the girl became a good girl again. As you write, her behavioural chain got started by some trigger - it was not her fault. Even if anyone of us is extremely experienced, there is always something new to learn, in your case it was the hard way.

It would have been a pity about you.

Rainer

Hmm .. what about a emergency injection set with some narcotic fot the snake?

To the alcohol: I'd highly suggest an internal treatment with a good Barolo or Barbera in such cases

I' ll ask my veterinarian for that, Guenter!
But I think im-injections would take too much time, and iv wouldn't be possible under these circumstances....

To the alcohol: I already knew we have about the same taste. Barbaresco or a fine old bottle of Brunello would fit too

Peter

Oh yes - and if You would agree on some great Irish Whiskeys too, then we really have the same taste

Hello,

any narcotic, even a really fast acting one even if you would be able to inject it immediately into the right place would not act quick enough due to the slow blood-circulation in reptiles. A python that would be able to kill you would still manage to kill you and maybe later fall asleep. Not much help for you.

Rainer

That's right, Rainer. The very right place would be the snake's heart, where my veterinarian uses to inject the narcotics, even then it could take some minutes before a very large python would fall asleep.
It's just impossible to find a snake's heart in a live threatening situation.
Snakes can move their hearts in both directions, backward and forward, that would be an additional problem.
I think there's only one really safe thing: Don't get attacked or only in company of at least 5 strong, fearless men.
Cheers
Peter

Ouch!!
No infections so far?


Best regards,
Harold

hey peter,

nasty bite there...
our old american volunteer, Mike, was once playing with one of our Retics.
i told him don't put her so close to your face not that she will bite you there....
he didn't listen, and a few seconds later Mike got bitten in the eye-ball....
it looked really really nasty.
2 months after the bite happens Mike was opening a pimple(at least he thought it was one), on top of his eye-brow and what came out of there???!!!!??? a tooth what was stuck in there from the small Retic!!

after that he never put any snake near to his face.....

that's why i don't like dealing with them, cause they are mean and if they bite it can be very nasty..
especially here in the philippines where you can have so real bad infections....

greetz ben

Your right, Benny, possible infections could be a problem...
On the other hand, a struggling with a six meter Python would not give you enough time on earth to develop an infection, not in every case at least.

Peter

That could have been much worse. Glad it was not TOO bad Peter.
I have seen teeth from these giant snakes and I have no interest at all to play with them.

Hi, amazing story. Congratulation for your second birth. It must be terrible moment when is on your hand hanged this big retic. You had lucky that she didn´t decided that she kill you
One my friend was attacked by adult Indian rock python about 3,6m long. And the python start to constrict him. The lucky was that in the room were 2 another people who helped him because the python hold his arms. And then his looks very bad... and his face was very white:) sorry for my english

Happy birthday! Ihad a very similar experience with 4-meter retic few years ago. Luckily I wasnt alone and the other man helped me to get free....otherways- I was in big trouble.

holy shit,nasty bite peter.

A very useful account for everyone there

I'm glad it turned out so well for you Peter. It always shocks me how naive the ordinary keeper of these types of snakes can be, many of these people simply have never considered the possibility of such an accident, let alone how they might deal with it realistically. I think we might personally be very similar in our time spent considering the consequences and playing out how we might act in our minds, just incase!

I can share a fraction of the experience, I once found while assisting a mere 12' male burmese python, that a sudden move by him combined with a push from me and a single tooth of his met with my thumb (This was stupidly despite always using 24" tweezer tongs for this purpose, every time before...)
The pressure and weight behind even that single tooth was just shocking, my immediate response was to tear my thumb from his mouth before any more contact was made, the tooth had pierced the middle of the nail base on my thumb, I ripped it sideways through my nail and thumb in my haste to escape! I felt no pain until a few minutes later, despite the superhuman strength we might find when pumped up with adrenaline and "caught" it still took great effort to free myself from even that single tooth.

They are certainly animals to take very seriously and as you say, these animals can never truly be considered "tame" if their response is triggered one day, their previous character can be forgotten entirely!

Lotte***

Lotte is correct, some keepers simply do not appreciate just how dangerous large constrictors can be. Regarding Broghammerus reticulates, does anyone actually take any notice of what Hoser says?

Oooops what have I done?

I noticed the red and green bar to the right of my post ... tried clicking it to see what it was, nothing happened... so tried the first post clicked on the green bar and it has changed! It now looks as though I have altered Peter’s score! Very sorry, I did not mean to. Please re-set it if you can Peter.

congratiulations Peter ,what a lucky man you are .
i knew there was a reason why i said to myself anything longer then three meters dont need to ocme into my house lol , but then i have witnessed smaller snakes do big damage so iam not sure its a good precaution ;o)
i have witnessed my freind getting attacked by a P.Brongermai wich was about 170 cm long for no reasonwhat so ever ,just came flying out of its cage and digge its teeth in to his arm and held on , i took the both of us to sepperate the jaws so far that he could pull his arm out wich looked pretty nasty afterwards ,

Guenther you didnt really miss out on anything not knowing what Mr hoser sys since most of it dont make much sence anyway