Australia: Winston The Pet Python Needed Surgery To Remove BBQ Tongs
Winston, a pet python, needed emergency surgery after swallowing barbeque tongs along with his dinner in Adelaide, Australia.
It seems his owner, Aaron Rouse, was using the barbeque tongs to feed a dead rat to his pet python, Winston. It turned out that was a bad idea. According to Rouse, the pet python latched on to the tongs as he swallowed the rat and his owner had a problem getting them away from him.
“I tried to prise him off the tongs but we didn’t have any hope of that at all.”
According to the Mirror Online, Rouse decided to leave the pet python be, but when he returned a while later, he was horrified to find that Winston had completely swallowed the barbeque tongs along with the rat.
He said, “I was dumbfounded,” and immediately phoned a veterinary expert.
MUST SEE: Here’s something you don’t see everyday! Check out what this pet snake gobbled down. http://t.co/rrrw8tNrbe pic.twitter.com/YqdzkbPzAu
— The Weather Network (@weathernetwork) May 15, 2015
Dr. Oliver Funnell from Adelaide University was amazed when he found out what exactly the pet python had swallowed. He initially imagined that Winston had swallowed some small tweezers or something along those lines. He then had to work out what to do next to get the tongs out of the snake.
“When Aaron arrived, the snake was in a box and I said ‘are you sure he swallowed the tongs?’ and Aaron just laughed because when you opened the box it was obvious what the problem was.
“You could basically see the shape of the tongs, and there’s a small clip that you slide forward to lock them and you could actually see the outline of that through the snake. You could even see the bumps on the end of the tongs.”
Pet python swallows BBQ tongs to make the best xray image of all time: pic.twitter.com/dMQqFGZqDI
— Greg Koenig (@gak_pdx) May 14, 2015
The Telegraph reported that it was then up to Dr. Funnell to work out exactly what to do in order to save the pet python.
As in a recent story on the Inquisitr about two teenagers who rescued a snake, the slithery critters do have the ability to “regurgitate food if they change their mind.” However, the vet said he wasn’t sure if Winston would be able to cough up these tongs, even if he tried.
“These are made out of a pressed metal, the edges are relatively sharp.
“[I decided] endoscopy was probably not a way to go because dragging the tongs out could have caused [internal] damage. The only sensible option was to do surgery.”
Dr. Funnell immediately gave Winston the pet python an operation to remove the tongs. He explained that with reptiles, you need to make an incision between the scales, and in Winston’s case, they made it over the larger end of the tongs, as that was furthest away from vital organs like the pet python’s heart and lungs.
“The clip was at the other end so these tongs would have been trying to expand the whole time, which would have been quite uncomfortable.
“We were able to remove them quite easily once we got the big end out.”
Apparently Winston the pet python is happily recovering from his ordeal, and his owner will need to find other methods to feed his pet in the future.
[Images: Winston the pet python screengrab from Telegraph video]
