Posted on 08/01/2007 6:45:24 AM PDT by Rb ver. 2.0
CHARLOTTE (AP) — A 15-month-old boy suffered minor injuries when he was attacked by a 4-foot ball python in a Mecklenburg County park here.
Christine Abdelmonem had taken her son, Adam, to get a better look at some ducks waddling nearby in Freedom Park on Monday. As she lowered the boy to the ground, she felt a tug and saw the snake wrapped around his leg.
She screamed for help and two maintenance workers rushed over. One hit the nonvenomous snake with a shovel before trapping it in a bucket, said Karla Thornhill of Mecklenburg Park and Recreation.
Adam was treated at Carolinas Medical Center for bite marks on his leg.
"When I pulled it off, he was fine," Abdelmonem said. "I wasn't."
John Calchera, a pet store owner in nearby Pineville, took in the constrictor snake. He thinks it may have been abandoned by a pet owner and that it won't survive being beaten.
"It's a totally harmless thing," he said. "Why attack a harmless thing?"
That's not affection. They are merely seeking warmth from you.
I too help turtles to cross the road and also did so for a large black snake which I think thought it was warmer on the road in late fall and really should have found his/her hybernation place. I picked it up by the tail and carefully carried it across the road so it could slip back into the creek.
I didn’t read the whole article but you’re right, the snake was not biting. Sadly, some people don’t know what snakes are poisonous and which are not and don’t stop to check. I can’t say what I would have done had it been my toddler. Probably overreact and then sort it out later.
“Balls are affectionate and will wrap around people.”
Do they give snake kisses with their snake tongues while snuggling?
Sheesh, that kid at #19 only lives because the snake wasn’t hungry!
Sounds sorta lib to me — doesn’t want standards, he just wants everyone to be nice. :-) BUT I could be reading it wrong. I will also give you that the newspaper writer could have taken that quite waaaaay out of context to say something he wasn’t saying. It just struck me as REALLY stupid. LOL
He told us he did not call townhall to ask what to do, he did not call the governor to figure out what to do. He just took a hoe and killed the snake.
Now that’s just stupid. I wouldn’t whack a snake just for fun. But if it bites my kid, I’d beat it to a pulp and not feel bad about it. It’s just kind of a priority thing for me. And I do the turtle thing too. :D
Mine got cut into three pieces with one whack of a sharp flat-end shovel.
I am no longer irrationally afraid of snakes. I got over that after moving to a piece of virgin forest on a creek. Now I just irrationally hate them.
I’d be careful of black snakes in this neck of the woods
(TX). They tend to be the moccasins.
The pet store owner was not identified as a VET.
A Veterinarian would not have trivialized an animal bit/snake attack on a baby.
Don’t disagree with you as a general matter but:
Adam was treated at Carolinas Medical Center for bite marks on his leg.
So whether it was before or after the Mom freaked out, at some point the snake started biting. And as you correctly note, if it is your kid and if you are surprised the way this Mom was by a PYTHON in a urban park, you in all liklihood are going to freak out first and figure the rest out later. I once found my 3 year old poking at a garter snake with a stick. Fortunately, both son and snake survived the incident, but I darn near had a heart attack.
They can recognize individuals, and choose which they will “seek warmth from”, and will avoid some people.
Some of it is by smell, I’m sure.
Just because they have a brain the size of a lentil does not mean they can’t think.
She put the child down and the snake wrapped itself around his leg. I doubt it was going to cradle the child and sing a lullabye. Sorry, but I’m still not about to get on a cell phone and call a veterinarian to see what the snake’s intentions are. I’d whack it too.
I know the difference between a black snake/king snake/rat snake constricter and a water moc. I’ve seen both up close and know their habitat. I would never pick up a moc but doubt I would find one on a well travelled street over a small creek in a populated neighborhood in Kansas. Although one cannot rule out mocs in this part of Kansas, to see one would be very rare.
My ex husband had a pet snake, a ball python. I hated it, not because I hate snakes, but because I don’t believe they belong in the house. Anyway, my husband was a kind man, and could not bear to feed it live mice—in fact, he kept the snakes lunch and made IT a pet!—so he tried to feed it dead frozen ones (called “pinkies” and sold at pet store). The snake could not have looked more distinterested so my husband pretended the mouse was running in the cage; the snake was not stupid, he rose up and attacked the real meat—he bit my husband in the palm of his hand, which promptly became numb and paralyzed. The snake was gone the next day.
Fine. I’m still not about to get on a cell phone and call a Pet Store Owner to ask what kind of effing snake has wrapped itself around my child’s leg.
LOL. The same can't be said about liberals.
When he was about 18 months, my son walked into the kitchen to show me a huge daddy longlegs he had found. My brain knew that although their bite is deadly, they have teeny tiny jaws and cannot bite anything bigger than a gnat, actually at that time I just knew that they were harmless to humans, didn’t even know the deadly to gnats thing. But I shrieked, knocked it out of his hand, grabbed him and ran. It took me about an hour to calm down. There are certain hardwired reactions which mothers have. Of course my son was ever after fascinated with spiders.
why beat it to a pulp? snakes are good eatin’!
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