Quite a few news stories have this. This is copied from one of them:
Police investigators believe a 25-year-old woman was strangled Tuesday by a 13-foot tiger python she kept as a pet.
According to police, the woman's husband came home about 11:30 p.m. to find his wife lying in a bedroom in their home in the 5200 block of Maracas Arch. The snake's cage was open.
The woman, identified as Amanda Ruth Black, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Preliminary information from the medical examiner's office indicates the woman died of asphyxiation.
According to police, she was trying to give the snake medication when the incident happened.
It took two animal control officers to catch and restrain the snake, which was found in the bedroom, police said. It is now at the Virginia Beach Bureau of Animal Control.
The case remains under investigation.
I'd be interested to know how big the woman was, as a 13 foot retic isn't really that big (most news outlets are calling it a reticulated python). They usually don't start putting on weight until 16+ feet, unlike a Burmese who could be over 150# at 13 feet.
While the death is tragic, I'm sure this will make inter-national news, and make it that much harder for reptile owners to legally keep large snakes.
WBurke17
She might have been real petite? My old redtail would give quite the squeeze at times and she was only 8+ft.
Heks
a 13ft snake, retic or burmese could put a choke hold on someone that would be deadly... its what they are designed to do... and if said person was alone an not strong enough to get said pissed off snake of his or her body well then you have a dead person.. makes sense to me... in all the years ive been dealing with snakes of various size not a single one that has had to have medication seemed to like it very much... as far as having large snakes.. she obviously didnt realize what she had and how she needed to handle it... if you know your not strong enough to handle an animal on your own, dont do it... sucks that the snake will prob be destroyed... it didnt do anything wrong... her bad
Celeste
I'm 5'3", and I wouldn't feel comfortable handling an unfamiliar retic much over about ten feet if I was all by myself... People just don't realize how powerful those animals can be.
reptilebob
Yeah, I don't doubt that the snake could squeeze someone that hard; I'm just surprised that the person wasn't able to get it off. She may have paniced, as that would be quite scary. I had a 16' Burm bite my upper calf (I was just in boxer shorts) and wrap around my legs. I was 16 or so at the time. I was more worried about it breaking teath off then doing any other harm. It was certainly strong, but if you're familiar with big snakes, there are a few tricks you can do to encourage them to let go (and even more options if you don't care about the snake's wellbeing so much).
I guess I can see if it bit in the face and pinned someone's arms down, but they have some pics up of the snake that supposedly did it, and it appears to be only 4-5" thick at the widest. If there's a constrictor that would kill someone, a retic is it, but I never considered a snake under 15' as being deadly for an adult.
Celeste
I'm guessing she had it draped around her neck or something while she was trying to medicate it, and it just started squeezing. Once it started, she wouldn't be able to pry it off (unless, as you pointed out, she had the presence of mind to do it serious bodily damage), and it might have made her black out pretty quickly... Even if you tried to go for the eyes or something, it could bury its head in a coil (or trap your arm) and you might not be able to get at the eyes...
I've dealt with friends' retics up to 12 feet (not alone!), and had contact with much larger pythons and anacondas (20'+) at reptile shows (with hundreds of knowledgeable reptile enthusiasts close by). People have to understand what these animals are capable of -- they can be surprisingly powerful. I betcha for every freak fatality like this we hear about, there are 10 or 20 "close calls".
And it's not the animals' fault -- most of them are not aggressive or vicious. It just comes from people being ignorant/stupid or underestimating the animals. :-/
balam
She was actually trying to give the snake her antibiotics by herself (a three person job according to the paper) when all this happened.
reptilebob
A retic this size is about as thick (and strong) as a 4-6' Burmese. While people should always be cautious, I still really don't see how it could kill someone unless the person was either extremely petite, intoxicated, or just totally panicked. The snake had to have been under 40# at the most, and while strong, they're not that strong at that size. I've been bitten and wrapped around over a dozen times by 10'+ snakes and never felt out of control or overpowered.
They're easy to peal off, especially if you're not worried about injuring the snake, or getting teeth broken off in you. My only guess is that if she tried to grab the snake off, she was pulling it by the middle instead of unwinding it on the ends (needless to say, no mater how strong the person is, you can't pull off a coil by pulling the middle), but the snake wasn't the big, so an end should have been easy to find.
The only danger with big snakes, is if they're able to pin your arms down, and unless a snake is twice the size of this one (in weight, not length), or the person physically resembles a 12 year old, I don't see that happening.
But, of course, it did happen some how. I guess I'll just be scratching my head as to why...
