7/20/2006: Python eats electric blanket

Official caption: Karl Beznoska's 12-foot Burmese python, Houdini, is attended to on an operating table, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, in Ketchum, Idaho. It took surgery to save the python after it swallowed an entire queen-size electric blanket _ with the electrical cord and control box. 'The prognosis is great,' veterinarian Karsten Fostvedt said after Tuesday's two-hour operation.



Facts culled from other news stories on the event:

- The blanket was in the cage for warmth; Beznoska thinks it got caught up in the snake's regular food.
- It probably took the snake 6 hours to eat the thing, and it took them 2 hours to take it out.
- The blanket was lodged in about 8 feet of the 12-foot snake; the incision to remove it was a foot and a half.
- It had been plugged in. Somehow the snake unplugged it.

Maybe Houdini just wanted to impress Houdinette with some Electric Lady Land.

Get this Motherf*&%#ing blanket out of my Motherf*&%#ing snake!

I wonder if it didn't smell and feel (temp) like food.

And they say Python isn't bloated. Just look at it...

what a waste of surgical skills and money when 20% of americans have no medical coverage at all!

I don't think that the veterinarian took time off from treating any human patients.

That X-Ray is amazing! It looks like something out of a sci fi moving. Are circular ribs? What's all that wavy stuff that looks so cool? I can't figure out of they're part of the blanket or part of the snake.

That xray is, indeed, way cool! I bet those wavy lines are part of the blanket. Think about it, an electric blanket has lots of wires that deliver the heat. With it squished up inside the snake's stomach, those wires just might look like that.

And I agree, that it's fine to spend $$$ on a pet's health.

Parallel circle looking parts are ribs, not really circles, of course, more like "C"s with the open part along the belly. Wavy parts running mostly lengthwise are the heating elements woven through the fabric of the electric blanket, then wadded/twisted up into what you see. The doctor's pen is pointing to the control box for the blanket.

Anyone have a python? I'm wondering how long it took to eat this thing -- and where the owner was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad Facts culled from other news stories on the event: - The blanket was in the cage for warmth; Beznoska thinks it got caught up in the snake's regular food. - It probably took the snake 6 hours to eat the thing, and it took them 2 hours to take it out.- The blanket was lodged in about 8 feet of the 12-foot snake; the incision to remove it was a foot and a half. - It had been plugged in. Somehow the snake unplugged it.

You ladies should have replied with a loud RTFA - and I would have had to take it like a man. Mea culpa.

I did read it, I just forgot that it had that tidbit in there.

Score another one for the Cellar in the "you heard it here first" catagory...

Good Morning America (I think*) interviewed the owner and the vet this morning. But it was already old news to me.


*wasn't really paying attention

Yes, LabRat, I had the same experience. Also with the Landis / Tour de France story, and Middle East updates too. Very educational.

xoB sends along this larger version of the xray photo, from the wapo.

Sad thing was...snake ate the owner a week before he ate the blanket. No one cared about the owner.

Shawnee
Founder and President: Save the Blankets Foundation

Usually there's a post about eating an animal that shouldn't be eaten. This is a thread about an animal eating something that shouldn't be eaten. Ironic.

Python

Golf's a habit. Like heroin or cocaine.

I wonder what the penalty is for that? One stroke or two?

I think anybody that would pay a vet to remove that golf ball is stroking something, but I don't like snakes.