- A teenager in Thailand was sitting on his home toilet when a python latched onto his penis.
- He physically survived the ordeal, but will probably be scared of toilets the rest of his life.
Someone could argue that we at Oddee are suffering from ophidiophobia of late. There’s the story about 100-pound snakes living in a man’s ceiling, and the pure horror of a four-foot snake pulled from a Russian woman’s throat. Now, rounding out a trifecta-of-awful, a snake in a toilet biting a man’s penis and sending him to the hospital.
Turns Out, It’s a Rational Fear
I don’t know about you, but snakes in toilets were a Top Ten Big Fear when I was a kid, along with shark attacks in the shower and quicksand. Those other two have ended up not being issues in adulthood (big disappointment), but it turns out that snakes in a toilet are a real thing. Be more scared!
The story comes to us from Thailand, and CNN has some just horrible photos of the entire ordeal. Don’t look at them if you have a thing about blood or legless reptiles slithering through home plumbing. CNN interviewed one of the rescue officers at the scene, Danupol Tapo, who had terrible news about these incidents’ frequency.
“I had witnessed snakes out of toilets many times, and when they bit [it] was mostly at legs and butts. Not the penis. This is the first time.”
First, really too bad about the teenager who was the first snake-penis-bite of Tapo’s career. But also, he’s seen this many times? Many times? I suppose the ordeal wasn’t pleasant for the snake, either. It was a four-foot python, luckily non-venomous, but genuinely stuck in the toilet’s plumbing.
A Worldwide Epidemic
The bitten teenager tied the snake’s head to the bathroom doorknob so it couldn’t escape, but they had to remove and smash the toilet to free the creature. Tapo isn’t the only one who sees snakes in toilet bowls all the time. You guessed it, Australia is similarly afflicted. Again, don’t look at the pictures in the link if you’re squeamish.
If you’ve got the willies just reading about this story, you’re not alone. There’s science behind why we’re uncomfortable with all things creepy and crawly. Back in ye-olde-days, when we spent a lot more of our time outdoors, people who could quickly spot snakes and spiders stood a better chance of survival. Now, their jumpiness is ingrained in our genes. But when the snake comes slithering up the toilet you’re sitting on, no amount of genetic pre-disposition to freaking out will save you.
The New York Post spoke to the teen’s mother, who predicts her son “will be scared every time he goes to the toilet.” Us too.