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Two children strangled by escaped python

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  • 06-08-2013 10:07am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭greentea is just wrong


    http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/pulse/102/international-news/1250/snake-strangles-two-children-while-sleeping

    "
    Two small brothers, age 5 and 7, have been tragically strangled to death in their sleep in Canada, by a massive 16-foot python that escaped from a pet store below the apartment where the children were staying the night.
    The first pictures have emerged of little Connor and Noah Barth, who were sleeping soundly when the 100-pound African Rock Python fell from the ceiling and attacked them.
    The boys were spending the night with Jean-Claude Savoie, who lives above the Reptile Ocean pet store that he owns in the tiny New Brunswick city of Campbellton. Reptile Ocean is home to a veritable menagerie of exotic animals, including crocodiles, tarantulas, tortoises and at numerous snakes.
    Mr Savoie described to Global News how he walked into the living room and found the two boys dead about 6.30am on Monday. He found the snake coiled in a hole nearby.
    He said the creeping serpent slithered upstairs into his apartment through the ventilation ducts and creeped into the ceiling.
    It then fell through the ceiling and dropped onto the small boys from above. Mr Savoie said he believes the snake coiled around both children and crushed them as they slept together on the floor.
    The National Post reports that the snake was a 14 to 16-foot African rock python that even its owner said was 'vicious' and was rarely handled."


    So sad. Don't know how believable it is though...


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Comments

  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 15,719 Mod ✭✭✭✭Tabnabs




  • Registered Users Posts: 1,023 ✭✭✭Dostoevsky


    Two children strangled by escaped python


    Horrific, particularly after what I've seen in the past fortnight. Just two weeks ago I was on a boat with others and we were approached by three smiling children, each in a separate coracle. They looked cute at first but as they got nearer I and everybody else next to me pulled back in shock and fear: each of the children had a very large python snake around their necks. The kids, the eldest of whom was about 10, addressed us all in English "one dollar", "one dollar". To think parents send their children out to "work" with a python over their tiny shoulders so Westerners can pay them for photos is a type of depravity we don't see too much of in Ireland, despite all our moaning about things at home.

    Why are people allowed to keep these "pet" pythons and "pet" Rottweilers - never mind sell them, as is the case here, and rabbit on about how "nice" these animals "really" are when a child gets her/his face bitten or, in this case, when two children get strangled?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,465 ✭✭✭Sir Humphrey Appleby


    Feckin unreal, absolutley tragic though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,023 ✭✭✭Fukuyama


    Rottweilers are fine.

    It's idiots who don't train them. When a dog that size becomes unruly you physically keep it under control. Not in a cruel way - but a smack on the nose, a scolding and a firm toss out the back door.

    I have no idea why someone would keep a python at all. Let alone have it around children. There's zero communication between them and humans. They can't be trained and have no loyalty to a person or a family.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,293 ✭✭✭1ZRed


    I never understood the appeal of owning a big snake like that. 95% of the time it's in its small cage, bar the times you bring it out to throw around your neck when you show your mates.

    I kind see them as useless as goldfish in that most of the time they're just there. But unlike a goldfish I wouldn't be too worried about him escaping and strangling me.

    All I know is if I had kids I'd make sure one of them wasn't in the house no matter how rare a situation like this is


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  • Registered Users Posts: 148 ✭✭MusicalMelody


    Was the snake not for sale? As it had escaped from a pet store.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,296 ✭✭✭Frank Black


    Dean0088 wrote: »
    Rottweilers are fine.

    It's idiots who don't train them. When a dog that size becomes unruly you physically keep it under control. Not in a cruel way - but a smack on the nose, a scolding and a firm toss out the back door.

    I have no idea why someone would keep a python at all. Let alone have it around children. There's zero communication between them and humans. They can't be trained and have no loyalty to a person or a family.

    Probably for the same reason people keep pet rottweilers - to demonstrate to the world how 'hard' they are.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,711 ✭✭✭keano_afc


    I thought it escaped from a pet store?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,380 ✭✭✭✭Banjo String


    The snake had to have been extremely hungry and not too secured in its tank to have been determined enough to bother.

    A snake, when properly cared for/housed properly and fed aptly will generally be docile enough and content enough to bother looking for food.

    More than likely human error was at play here.

    Poor kids though. R.I.P


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,919 ✭✭✭✭Gummy Panda


    Probably for the same reason people keep pet rottweilers - to demonstrate to the world how 'hard' they are.

    Rottweilers are really cute as pups though


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  • Registered Users Posts: 311 ✭✭LottieP25


    keano_afc wrote: »
    I thought it escaped from a pet store?

    They were sleeping above the pet/zoo store.

    Snake was not for sale afaik , it was show only.


  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭greentea is just wrong


    I hope it will be properly investigated. Seems to be a lot of open questions...
    How did the friend not hear anything going on, from the snake getting in, and then the 2 boys being strangled?

    God love their parents :(


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    Mm sounds a bit fishy tbh, even a heavy sleeper would be woken by a 100lb snake crashing through a ceiling and landing on you, the kids slept through that and the feeling of being strangled? pretty tragic either way but total negligence on the father's part if the snake managed to escape its enclosure, especially if it was known to be vicious


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,976 ✭✭✭✭humanji


    Threads merged.


  • Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭brianwalshcork


    Tragic.

    Perhaps my irrational fear of snakes isn't so irrational... I blame that scene in Indian Jones and the temple of doom where Harrison Ford fell backwards into the coffin full of snakes...

    I wouldn't be next or near a snake with my eyes closed.


    Back OT, why are dangerous reptiles allowed to be held in residential areas? I don't blame the snake here, the store owner is 100% responsible.


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    Tragic.

    Perhaps my irrational fear of snakes isn't so irrational... I blame that scene in Indian Jones and the temple of doom where Harrison Ford fell backwards into the coffin full of snakes...

    I wouldn't be next or near a snake with my eyes closed.


    Back OT, why are dangerous reptiles allowed to be held in residential areas? I don't blame the snake here, the store owner is 100% responsible.

    Because not all snakes are dangerous? plenty of people own snakes who are completely timid and docile, granted large ones can be dangerous purely because of their size but that's the owners responsibility to ensure they are kept secure.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,029 ✭✭✭Rhys Essien


    I posted this sign below over in the accommodation forum last week as a joke for someone asking how to keep annoying kids away from their house.:eek:

    IMG00078-20110909-0830___t160.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 58,456 ✭✭✭✭ibarelycare


    Those poor boys, but this story is all very odd. Why would the snake kill both boys? It would have no reason to, it would strangle one and then eat it presumably? Could a snake even get up a vertical ventilation pipe?? :confused: How did it just fall through the ceiling? I dunno, it definitely seems a bit fishy...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,044 ✭✭✭gcgirl


    Probably for the same reason people keep pet rottweilers - to demonstrate to the world how 'hard' they are.

    A friend has a Rottweiler she is adorable my mum has a jack russell who I love but his got a aggressive nature on which my mum and myself have classed over the little shït is treated like a child even my own dog who is a Samoyed mixed with a gs is pretty timid it's up to the owner on how the dog is brought up!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,919 ✭✭✭✭Gummy Panda


    gcgirl wrote: »
    A friend has a Rottweiler she is adorable my mum has a jack russell who I love but his got a aggressive nature on which my mum and myself have classed over the little shït is treated like a child even my own dog who is a Samoyed mixed with a gs is pretty timid it's up to the owner on how the dog is brought up!

    Can't remember if it was a wibbs post or another forum that Rottweiler's are naturally very friendly playful dogs but they look fierce and are usually trained to match their look.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,468 ✭✭✭CruelCoin


    Dean0088 wrote: »
    Let alone have it around children.

    The snake escaped from a petshop and went into the apartment.

    Not sure if the owner knew there were kids there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 291 ✭✭Seridisand


    Probably for the same reason people keep pet rottweilers - to demonstrate to the world how 'hard' they are.

    Someone seems to have an issue with Rottweilers, ever actually owned one?

    On topic, does it not strike anyone as strange that an apparently hungry and angry python, killed but didnt attempt to eat either of these kids(Yeah, I know.....)?
    I've owned a few different constrictor snakes and Ive never seen one, remotely interested in anything it wasn't planning to eat.


  • Posts: 13,688 Maliah Green Crab


    Those poor boys, but this story is all very odd. Why would the snake kill both boys? It would have no reason to, it would strangle one and then eat it presumably? Could a snake even get up a vertical ventilation pipe?? :confused: How did it just fall through the ceiling? I dunno, it definitely seems a bit fishy...

    If the two lads were asleep together, side by side, probably just wrapped around both simultaneously. As mentioned, it killed them, but didn't eat them?


    I know African Rock Pythons can be oddballs, but I agree, something seems to be amiss.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,526 ✭✭✭✭Darkglasses


    CruelCoin wrote: »
    The snake escaped from a petshop and went into the apartment.

    Not sure if the owner knew there were kids there.

    Op says that the kids were staying over with the owner of the pet store. Although there's a lot unbelievable things in this story, so that might not be true either.


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    Can't remember if it was a wibbs post or another forum that Rottweiler's are naturally very friendly playful dogs but they look fierce and are usually trained to match their look.

    someone I work with has one and it's the biggest wuss of a dog you'd ever meet she's afraid of her own shadow lol


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,925 ✭✭✭✭anncoates


    Maybe the snake killed them but was unable to eat them because of their size?

    Also would one child have woken up while the other was getting killed though?


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    i hope snake has a good lawyer


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭Obliq


    All very strange and tragic. I'd be seriously skeptical about how a snake that big crashed to the floor of an apartment and strangled two small kids without any of them making enough noise to wake everyone. And why were the 2 kids sleeping on the floor of a different room to the kid they were having a sleepover with? Although I know that's beside the point - none of it makes sense though. It all comes across as waaay too coincidental.

    Kids for sleepover - sleeping on floor of separate room

    Huge snake escapes on that night, makes it's way directly to the room with the kids in

    Snake owned by father of child - both sleeping in another room

    Nobody wakes up


    Hmmmm.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,339 ✭✭✭Artful_Badger


    Those poor boys, but this story is all very odd. Why would the snake kill both boys? It would have no reason to, it would strangle one and then eat it presumably? Could a snake even get up a vertical ventilation pipe?? :confused: How did it just fall through the ceiling? I dunno, it definitely seems a bit fishy...

    Its a snake, it probably didnt think the crime through just landed on things that were moving and being 16ft long and solid muscle coiled around them and killed them, small snakes will coil around your arm pretty tight with no intention of trying to eat ya.

    And snakes can get around too particularly them big ones. I'd imagine too its very heavy and this is an apartment over a pet store, so ceiling might not be very solid.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    anncoates wrote: »
    Maybe the snake killed them but was unable to eat them because of their size?

    Also would one child have woken up while the other was getting killed though?

    Snakes could eat something a lot bigger than a small child, there's videos online of them eating things like full grown deer and even small hippos, would take hours and hours to do but they can, a 5 year old child could easily be done. I dunno the whole thing seems odd, I can't imagine a 100lb snake falling through a ceiling would be something anyone could sleep through, it's very tragic though, horrible way to die.


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