Mother Finds Baby In Python Death Grip, Animal Expert Insists It Was Just A Hug [Video]

If you find that your child is caught in the death grip of a python, you probably don’t laugh and say that the snake is just showing affection. Yesterday morning, a mother woke up to find just that: A python wrapped around her 2-year-old daughter.

Tess Guthrie, a 22-year-old mother from Lismore, Australia, was woken at 3:30am to her cat’s hissing. Upon waking, she found that a python had wrapped itself around the arm of her daughter, Zara, who was in the bed with her. She grabbed the snake to try and get it off her daughter, causing it to bite Zara’s hand three times, reports news.au.

“After we went to the hospital and Tex came, they found the snake sort of down behind the bedside table and in-between the wall but I don’t doubt he was there for days,” she told the local TV station.

Tex Tillis, from Tex’s Snake Removals, showed up an removed the python. Tex said that the snake wasn’t trying to harm the child, and explained that the python was really just trying to show Zara some affection, or something.

“The snake, not in any way, shape or form, had intended to eat the baby – it was trying to have a group hug,” he told The Daily Telegraph. Further, Tex stated that the python only attacked Zara when Tess grabbed it, causing it to think it was being threatened. “When you grab a snake, a snake in its reptilian brain thinks, ‘anything that can grab me can also eat me’.”

Zara was treated at Lismore Base Hospital and released yesterday morning.

No harm, no foul in Tess’s eyes, however. She demanded that the python not be killed, but released back into the wild. “Not only is she courageous and gutsy but she’s compassionate,” said Tex.

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