Posted on 12/10/2009 7:10:45 PM PST by earlJam
Tampa, Florida - When Maryse Lawson came home Sunday afternoon with her 2-year-old daughter and found a large snake in her yard, she called 911. The Tampa Police dispatcher then directed her to Florida Fish and Wildlife.
But Lawson says neither agency sent help. In fact, she says the FWC dispatcher she spoke with even scolded her for calling 911.
The FWC dispatcher also suggested Lawson kill the snake by using a shovel to chop its head off.
"I told her, 'I'm not getting out of my car to do anything.' So, she told me to go get a neighbor and maybe they could do it," Lawson told 10 Connects.
Help did eventually arrive when a neighbor rushed to a nearby fire station. Officials used a garbage can to catch the snake, which turned out to be a 12-foot long Burmese python.
Now, FWC is admitting Lawson's call should have been handled differently.
"We are addressing this with our dispatchers and they know that when we have a situation like this that they should send an officer," FWC spokesperson Gary Morse said Wednesday.
Morse would not say if the FWC dispatcher would face any disciplinary action but Tampa Police spokesperson Andrea Davis added Lawson was correct in calling 911. Davis told 10 Connects if Lawson felt her life was in danger, she did the right thing by calling for help.
Officials believe the python was a pet that either escaped or was intentionally released.
The lady got off easy. In the last 1.5 years there have been two stories where “help” was sent in central florida.
In the first two deputies found a gator wandering around in public in an apartment complex but generally minding its own business, the one threw a towel on the gators head and lept on its back and was promptly bitten by the gator, his partner then emptied his sidearm in the apartment complex yard at close range and never hit the gator once. Eventually the trappers came to save the cops.
In the second, over in Brooksville, a wild boar was rooting up somebodys flower bed so they called the cops. The cop came out and, I am NOT making this up, tazered the wild boar. This made the boar very angry at the officer. Fortunately there were neighbors who saved the cop from the angry boar by shooing it into a hard side trailer and closing the door on it.
Sometimes having the cops fail to respond is a good thing :)
Firemen have bigger balls than policemen.
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Because they sell more tickets.
They keep te local donut joint in buisness didn’t you know that? *sarcasm* If this were me I’d want someone’s job! A snake that size could’ve ate the kid and killed her too.
A friend of mine, 25 year old man, was a reptile specialist. I asked him about the Burmese pythons taking over the wilderness in FL. He had tried keeping a Burmese once, no matter how gently and often he handled it, each time it behaved very aggressively, seizing his upper arm with his mouth, sinking his fangs into the flesh and grasping hard. As my friend would try to unwind the snake from his body, the snake would ‘reposition’ his fangs, moving his head up or down the arm and sinking the fangs in again. He said there is a ‘rule’ for handling reptiles and it was something like ‘one man for every 10 (or 12, I forget) feet of snake and that assumes that the participants are trained at how to handle snakes. In this story, the woman could indeed be suffocated by the snake even though it sounds unlikely. My friend said that what happens to snake handlers (reptile specialists) is that a large 12 or 14 plus foot snake wraps around the handler and the handler doesn’t panic and patiently proceeds to unwind the snake. The snake continues to advance his hold, and the handler continues to counter this hold. AND THEN THE HANDLER STARTS TO GET A LITTLE TIRED.....and sits down. This is when the snake starts to ‘win’. By the time the handler realizes that he really has to kill the snake to survive this slow, patient entanglement, something generally hard for a handler to accept, it’s too late.
Or a .44 for that matter.
The joke in Alaska goes that if you carry a handgun to deal with bears, make sure to file down the front sight, so it won't hurt so much when the bear shoves it up your @$$.
-ccm
Where I am the local P.D. is needed to keep the Katrina trash in their place.
The thumb rule is indeed 1 person per 10 feet. I keep snakes my self, though I only have 1 ‘large’ one. They aren’t malevolent, but ‘primitive’. They do not tame, but will ‘tolerate’. Understanding what they are helps.
The woman was in no danger, she wasn’t going to get ‘chased down’.
On the contrary, they make great pets. They aren't for everyone, but they are nice pets. Before anyone buys one, he should do the research. He should find out how big they'll get, what heat and humidity requirements they have, and what they'll need to eat. Unlike dogs, their mouths are not made to tear flesh and break bones. They cannot chase down a person. They do not see us as part of their territorial or pack instinct, so they don't become aggressive in territory defense or maintaining their place in the hierarchy. They don't turn over trash cans and scatter trash around the neighborhood. They don't keep the neighbors up all night barking.
People get freaked out about snakes, but they are actually great pets.
Snakes are less dangerous than most dogs. Their mouths are not made to tear flesh and break bones. They do not have a pack or territorial instinct that causes them to be aggressive to people.
Dogs kill about 20 to 30 people every year. They kill family members, children, friends, and strangers. Every year, there are about half a million to a million dog bites that require medical treatment. A large number of these bites are on children.
In the past four years, four people have been killed by large snakes. I don't know the full story on one of those cases. In two of those cases, the snake was sick, and the owner tried to administer medical treatment alone. The snake felt threatened and constricted. The fourth case was the little girl in Florida. The guy living with her mom has multiple convictions on drug dealing and the crimes that go with the drug trade. He's a dangerous loser, and kids around people like that are in danger. The fact that a drug dealer's dog kills a kid living with him isn't a reflection on dogs. The same is true for snakes or any other animal.
The notion that these animals are inherently dangerous is just wrong. People have phobias about them, but they are not inherently dangerous.
Your friend either got a very unusual (or abused) python or just didn't know what he was doing. I know many people who have worked with Burmese pythons that were extremely gentle animals. The notion that these animals are all aggressive and dangerous simply isn't true.
The snake continues to advance his hold, and the handler continues to counter this hold. AND THEN THE HANDLER STARTS TO GET A LITTLE TIRED.....and sits down. This is when the snake starts to ‘win’. By the time the handler realizes that he really has to kill the snake to survive this slow, patient entanglement, something generally hard for a handler to accept, it’s too late.
If your friend told you this, he is no expert at all. I agree that people working with the big snakes should have a spotter. Being a spotter doesn't require any special training. Mostly, the spotter needs to grab from the tail and start unwrapping. During feeding time, the smell of food can trigger a feeding response, and a confused snake may constrict a handler instead of its food. Likewise, a sick snake may confuse medical treatment with a threat and act aggressively. Most animals don't like being jabbed with a needle. Except for these situations, a spotter isn't generally necessary.
Snakes have less fat storage than we do, and the big ones do not have efficient lungs. In a prolonged struggle, the snake will tire as quickly or more quickly than the person. This notion that the handler will get tired, sit down, and be constricted is silly.
The rule of thumb is one person for every six feet of snake. Those of us who are bigger may extend the rule to seven or eight feet of snake. Again, the time that this rule is most crucial is feeding or giving medical treatment.
The higher number of dog deaths may simply reflect that there are far higher numbers of dogs than large snakes held as pets. I don’t know. As an aside, I hope that since the owner has multiple convictions this indident will result in yet another one, sending him to jail for a long time.
Javelina is good eating. The owner of that flower fed missed his/her opportunity.
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