I used to be a professional snake handler for a company in New Hampshire. One day, I was taking out a medium sized reticulated python (which is still around 16 feet), but I forgot one very important thing. You see, snakes sleep with their eyes open because they lack eyelids and they won't always be flicking their tongue when they are awake, so unless you are really paying attention to some subtle details, it can be difficult to tell if the snake is awake. When snakes wake up, they are often confused about their surroundings just like any creature. This can result in a recently-woken snake perceiving things as a threat or food that an alert snake would not. It's important to note this because people often confuse this behavior for aggression, when the snake is just confused and groggy. Anyway, I went in to take the snake out so I could clean its cage, but I didn't tap the snake on the body with one of those snake hooks to make sure it was awake before I reached in to grab it. The snake woke up as I was grabbing it, saw the heat of my hand, smelled rats (I had been feeding some other snakes earlier,) and launched itself at me. You develop a certain degree of reflexes from dodging snake bites, but it's nearly impossible to dodge one that comes unexpectedly and very fast. I managed to turn my body to the side, saving my hand from the bite, but the 16 foot snake still managed to latch right on to my ass. It then wrapped around my thighs and held on. It didn't hurt much because there are so few nerve endings down there, but I had to waddle embarrassingly down the hall and inform the manager what had happened. It took the combined efforts of myself and two other guys to get that snake off me and back into its cage. I still have dents where that snake latched on. It was pretty hilarious even at the time, but it's still my favorite dumb injury story.
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