From just outside the Mile High City: “A 10-foot, 80-pound Burmese python wrapped itself around the neck of its owner Sunday so tightly he couldn’t breathe, police said.”

“The 43-year-old man apparently died of asphyxiation, said Medical Center of Aurora spokeswoman Bev Husted-Petry,” The Rocky Mountain News reports. “Friends and neighbors identified him as Rick Barber.”

It took seven firefighters and two police officers to uncoil the snake.

The snake, named Monty, was taken to Aurora Animal Control. Officials will decide what to do with him today.

‘He was handling him around his neck like he usually does and Monty got aggressive with him and wrapped himself around Rick’s neck,’ said Kimberly Brown, who lived in the home with Barber and her cousin.

[…]When police arrived, two officers wedged their batons under the folds of the snake in an attempt to loosen him enough to allow Barber to breathe, Varnum said.

A fire engine arrived a few minutes later and seven firefighters, with the help of the police officers, managed to unwrap the snake. Officials believe the snake was coiled around Barber for 10 to 15 minutes.

‘The more the man struggled the more the snake constricted,’ Varnum said. ‘But after we removed it, it wasn’t aggressive at all.’

[…]The family theorized that Romero had forgotten to wash his hands after playing with a pet rabbit, something that could have confused the snake.

Snakes smell food through their tongues and mouth and if a person has just touched another pet, like a rabbit, the snake can attack, said Kipp Quade, who works at Pro Exotics Reptiles in Littleton.

‘If you smell like food to a snake, you are food to a snake,’ he said.

Pea-brained animals who’ve survived eons of evolutionary progression are doing something right. Best not to trifle with them — particularly those with the strength of seven fire fighters and a handful of policemen…

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