Giant snake takes Kenya man up tree, where titanic struggle ensues

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True story: I once had a 6-foot boa coil onto my bare chest as I was sleeping in my Hermosa Beach apartment. I woke up recalling some hazy dream about a snake, and with a clamminess on my chest. I then walked into the bathroom, flipped on the light and came face to face with a reptile coiled on the counter and flicking its tongue. I spent 20 minutes using a golf club to coax the snake into a suitcase, which I closed and put out for the night. It turned out to be a neighbor’s pet, which had been missing for days.

Better story: Kenyan farmworker Ben Nyaumbe this week was dragged up a tree by a 13-foot python, which had wrapped the man in its coils. Nyaumbe struggled for about three hours and used his shirt to cover the snake’s face to prevent it from biting him. He even bit the snake on the tail, before ultimately being rescued by villagers and police, who took the snake to a nearby sanctuary.

Nyaumbe was fortunate to have been able to dig his cellphone from his pocket and call the police. In a story on the BBC News website, a police superintendent said, ‘We want to arrest the snake because anyone of us could fall victim.’

Police were incredulous as to how a 13-foot snake was able to drag a grown man into a tree.

-- Pete Thomas