Comment Pennsylvania police shot and killed a 15-foot snake Wednesday as it strangled a man in his suburban Allentown home. Emergency personnel responded to a call Wednesday afternoon about a 28-year-old man in cardiac arrest with a snake wrapped tightly around his neck. When police arrived at the Fogelsville home, they found the man, identified by police only as the owner of the pet snake, lying on the floor unresponsive, Upper Macungie Township Lt. Peter Nickischer told The Washington Post. The “very big, very fat” snake had wrapped its waist around his neck – and its eyes were on the officers, he said. Nickischer said one of the officers fired a single shot, hitting the snake in the head. The reptile then released its grip and slithered away, allowing officers to pull its owner to safety, he said. Nickischer said paramedics administered “lifesaving measures” to the man before he was rushed to a hospital for treatment. He remained hospitalized Thursday, though his condition was not known, Nickischer added. A camper spooked a bear – then the grizzly came back and killed it Police did not say what kind of snake it was, and it is not yet clear why it turned on its owner. But this is not the first time this has happened. In 2015, a Florida teenager was bitten on the lip by a cottonmouth moccasin he kept as a pet, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Two years later, an Ohio woman called 911, reporting a boa constrictor wrapped around her waist and holding her nose. As The Post previously reported, the snake was not venomous and did not choke her, but she told the dispatcher that she had “blood all over her.” And last year, a Florida woman and her boyfriend were released from prison 12 years after the malnourished Burmese python wrapped its body around the woman’s 2-year-old daughter, killing her, according to ClickOrlando. Both had been convicted of manslaughter and child neglect, the newspaper said. After the recent snake attack in Pennsylvania, Nickischer praised the officers who saved a man’s life. He said officers did not know at the time where the snake was or how many were in the house, but they acted without hesitation. “They went in, they saw an opportunity to save a man and they showed a lot of bravery as far as I’m concerned,” he said Thursday in a phone interview with The Post.
