I have a banded krait video (click) up at Youtube and a guy responded with a comment that I didn’t know whether to take seriously or not. Apparently it is true, he was bitten by a banded krait in 1995 while enjoying a night out in a Bangkok bar on Soi Cowboy.
Some of the snake handlers at the cobra shows regularly ask members of the audience if they want to come out and play with the deadly snakes. Sometimes people do. It’s a rather thin line between letting audience members interact with the snake in a dangerous way – and just doing enough so they think they are. In this case they let this Swedish guy come down onto the floor with the snake. Well, here are his comments. I’ve edited them a bit to make it more understandable. It still might not be perfect, but, best I could do. He said English was his 3rd language. Pretty damn good for 3rd language!
His story below:
I got bitten by a banded krait 1995 in Bangkok, and it was during the night, at a Soi Cowboy bar with a Muay Thai boxing ring as the snake show platform. They had 3 cobras they played with for a while and then brought out the banded krait.
The snakeman invited me to come up on stage (I suppose he didn`t expect me to do it). He took it by the tail and swept it from side to side towards me. As the snake got aggravated and aggressive and attempted to strike, but the distance kept me safe until it pulled itself up and lunged – striking like a whip. It bit me on the arm, while everyone in the bar screamed as it reached from his hand all the way to my arm… pumping, as it seemed to have been doing so for long, as my reaction was to first see it attached to my arm, then I remembered the whip like attack. In my mind it was so much faster than human awareness could keep up with. Still, as I saw its eyes it made me think, “like a shark, with dead eyes”. I quickly realized that I could die and I grabbed it around the throat and squeezed very hard and ripped it off my arm. The head was angled and mouth still open. I hit it on the head full-force to kill it, and dropped it – yet it remained alive.
I picked a small tooth out of my arm, smaller than a kitten’s tooth. I bled from just one small spot where the tooth was embedded. Yet, it got enough venom in to fully envenomate me.
The effects of a such bite were far worse than I could have imagined, as I ended up in hospital and after a week or so, when I was about to leave the hospital, the doctor told me it would take around 5 years to recover – and it did.
The guy who was bitten has a Youtube account with username – Pasiorha.
Quite a story, right?
I have never seen one of these snakes try to bite… and I wasn’t aware they struck outward from the body like that. I thought they just twist around to bite. Learn something new all the time.
So, when the snake show guys ask you if you want to come down and play with the deadly snakes – will you?
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