Oregon cop battles 12-foot python to save pet store owner

A pet store owner is calling a police sergeant a hero for saving her from the coils of a 12-foot Burmese python doing its best to turn her into a meal.

Teresa Rossiter had reached into a cage Thursday to show the huge snake to a customer when it bit her right hand and coiled around her left arm to throw her to the floor.

A friend who happened to be at the store kept the snake off her neck and body while police were called. And when Sgt. Ryan Nelson rushed into the store, he was ready to kill the snake with his knife.

But Rossiter asked him to spare the expensive python, so Nelson put on gloves and pried open the snake's mouth to free Rossiter's hand.

Two responders from the Eugene Fire Department helped unwrap the snake, which was eventually returned to its cage.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_fe_st/odd_python_attack;_ylt=Aj60qRH1jYmSn7qxOgort9as0NUE

Rossiter suffered dozens of puncture wounds, but she, the sergeant and the python were fine.

There is no way I would ever get NEAR a snakes mouth...or any part of it for that matter!

That wasnt a very good sales pitch! lol

I'm guessing the customer took a pass on the snake. The cop did a great thing. I'd have passed out and then gone all fetal in the corner, snakes are my own private hell.

Shudder

Wow - what a story, DK.

That would have been my last dealings with snakes if I was that pet shop owner.

I thought those things belonged in zoos and that it is illegal to own them as pets??

The only good snake is a dead snake.

Pepper said:

I thought those things belonged in zoos and that it is illegal to own them as pets??

The only good snake is a dead snake.

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Not pythons. You can buy them at any pet store. Only poisonous or exotic snakes are illegal to own.

And snakes are beneficial, whether it's eating insects or rodents.

Dark Knight said:

And snakes are beneficial, whether it's eating insects or rodents.

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But not when eating human limbs.

I would have died right there... snakes are my own worst enemy. Deathly afraid of them.