A 12-foot pet Burmese python broke out of it’s aquarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom Wednesday at a central Florida home. Shaunnia Hare was already dead when paramedics arrived at about 10 a.m.
Charles Jason Darnell, the snake’s owner and the boyfriend of Shaunnia’s mother, discovered the snake missing from its aquarium and went to the girl’s room, where he found it on the girl and bite marks on her head. Darnell, 32, stabbed the snake until he was able to pry the child away.
Darnell did not have a permit for the snake. He has not been charged, but investigators were looking into whether there was child neglect or if any other laws were broken. The snake will be placed with someone who has a permit, pending an investigation into the girl’s death.
Les Wade had been surfing alone at Seven Mile Beach, Gerroa, for an hour on Saturday morning when a wave brought him closer to shore about 8.30am.
He’d just gotten off his board and was standing on the sand in waist-deep water about 60 feet from shore. He started walking and was just about to jump back on his board when he felt something hit him from behind. At first he thought it was another surfer knocking into him but when he turned around there was a 6 ft shark staring at him.
The shark eventually took off but had already chowed down on Wade’s leg and foot. The shark’s teeth had dragged some deep wounds along his skin, including a 6″ gash on his shin and a wound to the heel. You could peel the skin back see the bone. Ew.
Wade’s wounds were cleaned and checked for any lingering shark teeth before receiving more than 50 stitches. He was released from hospital five hours later.
Ha had planned to return to the ocean as soon as possible but after a rough night of reliving the incident in his head, he’s having second thoughts.
Turns out the man who was chomped by a shark in Ausrtralia yesterday was 52-year-old Les Wade. He was about 20 yards out when he felt a tug on his leg. Thinking it was another surfer, he turned around to find a 6ft bronze whaler shark.
Wade was bleeding badly from the FIVE bites to his lower left leg but managed to catch a wave to shore. 50 stitches later… he was able to limp out of the hospital last night.
Cal Fire officials said Monday that no beach advisories will be posted after a surfer was hurt off Shell Beach in what is suspected to have been a bite by a small shark or other marine animal because the cause of his injury can’t be confirmed.
About 8 p.m. Sunday, a 26-year-old man reported that his foot was hurt while he was surfing in the waters off of Silver Shoals Drive.
San Luis Ambulance medics took the man to Arroyo Grande Hospital to be treated for what they described in radio dispatches as “numerous puncture wounds” from “an unknown marine animal.”
But fire officials said Monday that they could not confirm the injuries came from a “dangerous marine animal” attack.
Korean beaches used to be considered shark-free but our toothy friends have been spotted along the coasts in recent months.
The National Fisheries Research and Development Institute has warned vacationers visiting beaches to pay attention to sharks between May and September, saying the country is no longer a shark-free region.
The growing danger is due to rising sea temperatures and the expansion of warm currents to the peninsula. “With the warm currents flowing toward the country, sharks’ prey such as mackerel and squid, are coming to the coast, and sharks are following them,” Kim Jung-nyun, a researcher at the institute, said.
He also said that when a shark attacks, people are advised to hit its nose, where sensory organs are gathered, with wooden or iron poles, and then it will swim away. Uh, so keep one of those handy why don’t ya.
