Boy Rescued From Fangs, Tight Coils of Pet Python

A 10-year-old boy who went to give his pet python a bowl of water Monday was held captive when the snake latched onto his hand and coiled tightly around his arm, defying efforts to pry, stab or saw it off.

Paramedics were called only after Tanner Murabito was bitten a second time when he tried to force open the snake’s mouth with his free hand. The boy’s older brother also stabbed the 65-pound python several times with a steak knife before firefighters arrived.

“It wasn’t going anywhere,” said Tabby Cato, a spokeswoman for the Anaheim Fire Department. “That became clear rather quickly.”

Firefighters also couldn’t pull the 12-foot snake from Tanner’s left arm nor pry its fully-locked jaw from the boy’s hand, and resorted to the only option left: They decapitated it.

“I was beginning to worry that the snake would break his arm,” said Anaheim Fire Capt. Tom Wills, who was called to the South Haster Street apartment with a crew of eight. “We were sort of out of options.”

Tanner’s mother, Tina Murabito, supplied the crew with the biggest knife she could find from her kitchen. Under Wills’ direction, fire engineer Robert Lundstedt began sawing into the python, about six inches behind its head, a move that drove the snake to thrash its entire body except its head, which remained firmly connected--via teeth--to Tanner’s hand.

Lundstedt kept working as two partners tried to hold the raging snake, which Wills said was “as wide as my thigh.”

When the smooth-edged, 10-inch kitchen knife reached the spine, however, all cutting stopped. It wouldn’t cut through. Lundstedt quickly traded up to a serrated buck knife, borrowed from another firefighter on the scene, and resumed.

“It felt like an eternity, but really it was a matter of 15 or 20 seconds,” Wills said of the beheading in the snake’s wooden box home.

Finally, the lower half of the reptile’s body fell to the floor. The 10-year-old was free . . . almost.

It was that head again, Wills said. The snake remained attached to its prey, dangling from the boy’s bleeding hand as if to defy its death sentence.

Two paramedics proceeded to shake Tanner’s arm, which was just beginning to return to its natural color. After a few jerks, the snake dropped to the carpet.

The sight relieved Wills, who has rescued two other children from the suffocating embrace of pythons. The latest victim, aside from a black-and-blue hand and aching arm, will be fine, Wills said.

Tanner told officials he had just fed the snake Sunday, and Wills was unsure what prompted the attack.

“He was a complete trouper, really calm and pretty brave,” the fire captain said. “And when he told me his snake’s mother was 24 feet long, I was like, ‘This thing’s a baby?’ Thank God this didn’t happen a few years from now.”

The python, a gift from Tanner’s grandfather a year ago, had lived in the box in the boy’s room.

Orange County Animal Control authorities disposed of the python’s remains. Tanner was treated at Western Medical Center-Anaheim and released.

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About Pythons

* Habitat: Tropical regions with heavy rainfall in Southeastern Asia, India, East Indies, Africa and Australia

* Size: African rock pythons reach up to 30 feet, second only to giant anacondas.

* Squeezing their prey: Constrictors wind themselves around their prey and squeeze it to death, then swallow it whole. Large animals can take many days to digest.

Source: World Book Encyclopedia