Karl Davies laughs while helping to catch the python that bit him in the leg during a hike in Hong Kong. Screenshot: Karl Davies/Facebook
A British man who was bitten by a python while hiking in Hong Kong
returned to the same spot with a trapper to capture the 14-foot-long snake.
Karl Davies, 49, posted a video to Facebook showing him
helping professional snake catcher Dave Willott capture the large python at the
side of a trail in the Sai Kung district Wednesday, two days after he first
encountered the snake.
Davies said he was walking his two border collies
with friend Andrew Chambers when the python, which he had spotted during
previous walks, made its appearance.
"I walked past the place I'd seen the snake
before and it wasn't there," Davies told the South China Morning Post.
"The next thing -- bang! -- The python jumped out of the bush and sank its
teeth into my leg. It got me around the lower calf."
He said getting the snake, which he nicknamed
Kaa-rl, to release its grip proved difficult.
"Andrew started shouting and screaming 'Get out of here, get out of
here.' He gave it a couple of kicks and threw a stone at it but missed and hit
me on the ankle.
I tried to [pry] the snake's jaws off my leg and
punctured two fingers, and then I tried to smack it on the head with the stone
that Andrew threw and that didn't do any good either.
I dragged my leg along to drag it off and then I
tried to run with it to see if I could shake it off. By then the snake was
starting to coil. I dragged it full length into the path and I fell down, and I
saw it again trying to coil itself. As I got up, that's when it fell off."
Davies, who plays rugby for a club in Hong Kong,
joked the encounter, was a great training exercise.
"It was like pulling dead weight. It should be
a training regime for rugby players -- snake on the leg," he said.
Davies was released after about six hours in at
Tseung Kwan O Hospital.
The snake, which has been blamed for numerous
attacks on dogs in the area, was taken to the Kandoorie Farm and
Botanic Garden, where it was measured at 14 feet long and weighed in at 51
pounds.
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