Pet-store owner attacked by 20-foot python

A reptile shop owner taken to a hospital Monday after an apparent python attack thanked people for their help and concern, but he claims the snake didn’t wrap itself around his neck at all.

He says he slipped on a wet floor, hit his head and blacked out. He said that if the officers had shot the snake, it would have constricted even tighter and killed him. Oh my god, please.

“When officers arrived on the scene, they located the victim who was total(ly) unconscious with a large snake wrapped around his head and neck”, according to a Newport police report.

In this case, perhaps not so much.

Police officers Lt Greg Rapburger and Srgt Daron Arnburg arrived at the pet shop. One officer grabbed the snake by the head and worked to pull it from Wilkins’s body. In photos, blood can be seen splattered on the back wall of the snake’s enclosure.

The pet store owner was just cleaning the glass cage when the 125-pound, 20-foot-long python coiled around his arm. They then revived Wilkins and called for an ambulance to transport him to a hospital, where he was eventually released for minor injuries. “… It was a horrific event”. The Newport store appears to have opened in August, according to posts on the stores Facebook page.

“He is perfectly fine and back to work”, she wrote of her father. “We all know how the news media likes to exaggerate about everything and make a situation seem ten times worse than it actually is”.

“He did not nearly die or die as people have been saying”. They proceeded to untangle Wilkins from the snake’s grip, but called emergency responders when they noticed he wasn’t breathing. Once a python gets a hold of you, a man my size, a pro football player … he’s not getting away.

Wilkins owns Captive Born Reptiles on Monmouth Street in Newport.

When asked Thursday about Wilkens’ comment, Collins said, “I’m not going to debate this guy”.

Pythons are large nonvenomous snakes that kill prey by constriction, and with the exception of the Burmese python, there are few of these critters living in the wild in North America.