Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Python Sneaks Up on, Bites 15-Month-Old in N.C. Park

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A 15-month-old boy suffered minor injuries when he was attacked by a 4-foot ball python in a Mecklenburg County park here.

Christine Abdelmonem had taken her son, Adam, to get a better look at some ducks waddling nearby in Freedom Park on Monday. As she lowered the boy to the ground, she felt a tug and saw the snake wrapped around his leg.

She screamed for help and two maintenance workers rushed over. One hit the nonvenomous snake with a shovel before trapping it in a bucket, said Karla Thornhill of Mecklenburg Park and Recreation.

Adam was treated at Carolinas Medical Center for bite marks on his leg.

"When I pulled it off, he was fine," Abdelmonem said. "I wasn't."

John Calchera, a pet store owner in nearby Pineville, took in the constrictor snake. He thinks it may have been abandoned by a pet owner and that it won't survive being beaten.

"It's a totally harmless thing," he said. "Why attack a harmless thing?"

Huh? So entwining around a 15 month-old BABY is harmless?

Mr. Calchera? You sir are a lucky man to be out of range of my reach at the moment.

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