Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby Sico » Sat May 25, 2013 6:40 am

Lusaka -
A Zambian truck driver who was forced to kick, bite and stab his way from the clutches of a giant python, said on Friday he was lucky to be alive.
Kelvin Katoka, 25, unknowingly ran into the giant snake, while driving his excavator in the bush at a copper mine in north western Zambia.
"Within no time, the python was all over my body and it then threw me on the ground," he told AFP by phone from his hospital bed, where he has been recovering for nearly a month.

Rock pythons are Africa's largest snake and can grow up to 7m-long.
They have been known to kill and swallow whole antelope, wildebeest and even crocodiles.
Attacks on humans are rare.

Katoka managed to bite the python as it coiled around him and held on in a "long struggle".
"It then clicked to my mind that I had a small knife in my work suit pocket and quickly, I rushed for it," he recalled.
"I stabbed it in the sides of its body and slowly it started loosening itself but by then, I had become weak."
The snake once again wrapped itself around his body and "started to apply saliva all over my face in readiness to swallow me," he said.
Already weak, Katoka started vomiting blood.
"I started vomiting blood and I lost vision of what was happening and that was how I became unconscious," he said.
"It then coiled itself round my body to the extent that people could not see anything else apart from the python itself."

Two workmates luckily came to where he had been working in Mwininlunga, 840km, north west of Lusaka.
They killed the python, carried Katoka away and took him to hospital.
"From the day I was attacked, I have known that my life will never be the same. I have pain in the ribs and I am very weak."
"I am lucky to be alive, it's by the grace of the Lord, I thought I was gone," said Katoka.

- AFP 2013-05-24 22:13

Pity that try as they might they just could not find a picture of an Afrock - a pic of the dead snake would have been nice as well... Could have been a much more informative article if someone bothered to ask the right questions.
Mark
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Re: Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby Mr Venom » Sat May 25, 2013 10:19 am

"started to apply saliva all over my face in readiness to swallow me", what nonsense is this?

A picture would have been good.
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Re: Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby Bushviper » Sat May 25, 2013 10:53 am

What a lot of cr@p. He does not suffer a single bite wound but has to spend 4 weeks in hospital.
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Re: Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby Sico » Sat May 25, 2013 1:56 pm

Mr V, there was a pic...of a Retic!
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Re: Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby LizardLover » Sat May 25, 2013 2:18 pm

Sure there was. I wonder where it is now, the retic probably ate the picture.
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Re: Man tells of escape from python's clutches

Postby Bandit » Mon May 27, 2013 4:23 pm

I saw this in the Rapport on Sunday.
It was accompanied by the Wikipedia ball python picture.

biggest load of Bull S...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ball_python_lucy.JPG
0.1 Black Headed Python
0.1 Irian Jaya Carpet Python
0.1 Dumerils Boa
1.0 Ball Python

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ― Christopher Hitchens
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