Oops, I Probably Shouldn't Have Done That Part Deux

I've been wondering for a while when another episode would occur that would find itself worthy of being written about for you all under this genre. Well it occurred this week at the Billabong Sanctuary.

All was well at the park and it was just another day with nothing too exciting happening. It's been windy lately and we've had some American teenage tour groups come through (including one really smart girl from Tennessee who asked me "What are you? You can't be white, you're too dark. What are you?"), but thats about it.

I had done my morning run, helped out with some shows, and was able to feed all the baby pythons that we have with about twenty of them in all. Then I was asked by one of the rangers to take the extra mice he had dried out from the day before and feed them to the lizards. Here is where things got interesting.

Everything was fine at first, all the smaller lizards were good reptiles and ate their food when served. But last I was told to give the rest of the mice to the Gooey Lizards, also known as the Lace Monitors. These things are best summed up as a smaller version of the Komodo Dragon. They seem very peaceful at first, show no teeth when they first open their mouths, and have long claws and nails. I hadn't really taken much time to stare at them much, but they get up to 6 feet long and can weigh upwards of 75lbs. They're also known for their bacteria they have in those dirty mouths, so look out. I've supplied you all with a picture of the one that bit me.

So there I went to their inclosure to feed them (there are two). I walked up to the side and saw them sitting along the back wall. I took the first mouse--a nice big, fat one--and tossed it in. Now these guys will fight over them so I made sure to grab a second one and hold it up for the other one to see. Once it saw I had another one I began to move my arm to toss it in. Apparently these Gooeys are a hell of a lot quicker than I thought, I am not as quick as I thought, and these guys will climb up on the rocks in their inclosure and jump at the food (only afterwards was I informed that they have quarantined the third one because it keeps escaping).

Anyway, put all those things together and--innocently or not--the bastard bit my hand. Fortunately for me it just was going for the food and did not latch on to my hand and wriggle, which would have broken my hand most likely. Unfortunately I instantly felt a little sharp pain and saw that my hand was bleeding. A lot. As in I have never bled so much in my life. Honestly my first thoughts were "Ow that hurt....oops I'm bleeding...guess I should go wash it off." I did not realize how deep the cuts were at first, but ten minutes later when I was bleeding just as badly I figured something wasn't right.

Fortunately for me again, the rangers at Billabong are awesome and knew exactly what to do. I walked back to the main work area and one ranger immediately cleaned up the wound and got me to apply pressure to try and slow the bleeding. Not even ten minutes later the manager came and said she had already gotten me an appointment at the medical center to deal with my hand. And with that we were off.

I was seen right away at the doctor's office (so much better than at home where I'd probably wait in the ER for an hour), and only then did I see the cuts the Gooey had made--before there was so much blood that I never actually saw the cuts. The nurse there was nice and helped clean my wound, all the while telling me stories of the people she has nursed who eventually died of snake bites. Very comforting. The doctor came in and decided to glue the wound shut instead of stitching up my fingers. I've never had a wound glued before, and it's definitely an interesting way of doing it.

So the past couple of days at the park have been interesting with me only being able to do certain tasks and earning the nickname of the gimp. I've gotten lots of jokes like "The crocodile get ya?" about a thousand times from visitors, and one guy even tried to joke that a koala did it--god help the man who has such a severe bite from that koala.

Last night I was able to take off the bandages and see how the healing process has gone. And when I took the bandages off I actually got my first real good look at how many cuts I had. While my thumb and ring finger were taped up, they were really fine. My middle finger had a nice gash and the glue and blood have coagulated together quite nicely (the glue was purple, hence the color). And my index finger is the real winner: 6 bite lines, three real big gashes, and some ragged teeth marks that will make some awesome scars!

I guess the moral of this story is: when you see a big lizard, just toss the food in from far away. But no worries, shit happens, and now it's a great story with some cool scars on the way. Gotta love the outback! Hazaa!