Robert Preston wrote:
I’ve always been a reptile guy. I got my first big python when I was in college. One day after class, I ate some baked chicken then went to clean the snake cage. I was going to feed it a chicken that day and I wanted to tidy up its enclosure before feeding time. It smelled the chicken on my breath and bit me across my face. Top teeth went in my nose, bottom teeth caught the right side of my cheek at the corner of my mouth. When she got me, I immediately - and instinctively - pulled my head back. That dragged her teeth down my nose and opened up some pretty big scratches. The snake let go and I got a tetanus shot. I ended up looking like a cat had mauled my nose. I still have scars. I also still have snakes but I’ve not taken a hit to the face since.Burm? Retic? How big is big?
Similar thing happened to a colleague once. She had been hand-raising an orphan possum, but as she leaned in to scrub a 35 pound boa constrictor's water bowl, the usually docile snake couldn't resist and nailed her directly on the top of her delicious possumy-scented scalp. Of course, the rest of us thought it hilarious, but there comes a size with big snakes when the appropriate emergency response isn't simply amusement and ridicule.