To be Constricted by a Python

By Tom Kessensich, 47, herpetologist; As told to Peter Martin

For a while I kept a ten-foot amethystine python in a cage in my house. He was as big around as three or four garden hoses. One day, I stuck my hand into his cage to retrieve a rat he'd dropped, and, seeing movement near his prey, he nailed my forearm. I'm a hockey player and I consider myself fairly quick, but the strike was lightning fast. He dug in and I started bleeding. Was it painful? Well, he has about eighty needlelike teeth, and he left a U shape on my arm. So I'd say yes.

I grabbed his jaw with my other hand and put pressure on both sides, but he didn't release. Right about then I felt the coil start to come up my arm and loop over my shoulder. It's just like an octopus tentacle: It finds a way to get around you.

A python's bite isn't venomous, but they can kill humans by asphyxiation. I decided to run to the bathroom to run cold water over his head. By the time I got there, he'd started to coil around the back of my neck. In three to five seconds, he wrapped around my upper torso and neck. He was trying to get as many coils around me as he could. Once they get those coils around, it's just like a compactor; they just pull it tighter. I could still breathe, but it was hard. The pressure was unbelievable -- so strong, so oppressive.

The cold water on his head shocked him, and he actually coiled tighter. I started to panic, but I kept him underwater, and after fifteen seconds I could feel him trying to get his mouth off. He was dug in so deep, he was having trouble. I've got blood running down my arm, so it's a mess. With constrictors, you have to push their heads forward to pull them off because their teeth are curved inward. I reached down behind the head and pushed in and up with my thumb. Fortunately, he released and I was able to work the coils off me. Unfortunately, he also got really stressed and defecated all over my bathroom.

To be Carried by a Tornado

By Rick Boland, 39, tree trimmer; As told to Leslie Shiers


It was around 9:15 at night, and my son Craig came in from the deck and said, "The sky's looking funny out here." I said, "Give me a minute," but I never made it outside. The electricity started flickering, and I could hear the wind howling. The house started to shimmy a little. Stuff was flying off the deck. We were looking at each other dumbfounded.

We ran to the bathroom on the top floor, and I told Craig and his girlfriend to get in the tub. I was looking at my feet, and the floor was doing a wave-type thing. I couldn't keep my balance. Then the power went out and it was pitch-black. I heard windows blowing out, stuff smacking. It was like a big tidal wave hit the house. It was the loudest thing I ever heard in my life, like three 747's right above your head.

Then there was a bit of calmness. I think that's when the part of the house we were in was being picked up. I don't know if we were in flight then or what. I could hear this humming, like we were inside a giant vacuum cleaner. Then all hell broke loose. I think that's when the house disintegrated.

Ever been in a deep sleep and someone's yelling, but you can barely hear them? It was something like that. I could hear everything, feel stuff, but I couldn't see anything. I had my eyes closed, just keeping the wind and debris from getting in. I was being struck by debris but couldn't really feel it. I just felt a deep pain. At one point I took a blow to the head. I didn't know how much longer I could handle the abuse.

I figure I was spinning upright, like a top, because right before I hit the ground, I remember a feeling of untwining. I landed pretty hard on my stomach. When I looked up, lightning struck, and that's when I saw the tail up in the sky. Plain as day. It was the first tornado I'd ever seen.

We all landed about twenty yards from one another in a neighbor's field. We were just covered with mud. I had thirty pieces of wood in me, ranging from the size of an arrowhead to a couple feet long. Pieces of the bathroom, I imagine. I looked like I got shot by an Indian. Craig came out of it a little rougher. He had a punctured lung, three cracked ribs, a broken shoulder blade, and his ear was just barely hanging on.

We were lying there on the ground, waiting for the ambulance, when we heard the tornado siren from St. Mary. I said, "Well, they're a little late."

To Eat Two Pounds of Butter

By Don Lerman, 57, competitive eater; As told to Noah Rothbaum


In a 2002 contest, Lerman ate seven and a half quarter-pound sticks in five minutes -- a record that still stands.

The butter was refrigerated, so it was like biting into a hard ice-cream cone. Except that when you eat something like ice cream, you get a sense of deliciousness that draws you to eat more. Not with butter. In fact, after the first stick, it didn't even taste like butter. It didn't taste like anything. It coats your mouth like axle grease, so it's hard to swallow.

You really have to push yourself. A lot of people get tired from the fat very quickly. It slows down your metabolism, your vigor. I took smaller bites, making sure I swallowed before going on to the next stick. That made it a little easier. Afterward, I felt bloated, like at Thanksgiving dinner. I'm dairy intolerant, so the butter really turned my stomach. It was like taking a couple bottles of mineral oil. Everything came out of my system, even that piece of undigested fruitcake from eight Christmases ago. Then I felt fine. I had a bagel with butter the next day.

What It Feels Like … to Be Struck by Lightning



By Max Dearing, 42, sound engineer, as told to Daniel Torday

I have a degree in electronics, so I know about the destructive power of high-voltage energy, but this was beyond what I could have imagined. I was struck on a typical North Carolina July afternoon — little billowy clouds floating by, mostly sunny.

I was out golfing in Durham with four of my coworkers on a Friday afternoon. We were on the fifth hole when it started to sprinkle. We decided to get under a shelter and wait it out. We were standing there, just kind of harassing each other the way we always did, just talking junk. I remember the air had a sweet ozone smell to it. That's about the last thing I recall before the strike.

When the bolt hit, I was absolutely frozen, just as cold as I've ever been in my entire life, but then part of me was incredibly hot, too. I saw these red flashing lights, and I kept thinking, It's a fire truck! A fire truck! as if I were a little kid. Then there was the most incredible noise I'd ever heard. The sound was so loud that I honestly couldn't hear anything. Evidently, it's so loud that it blows the cilia in the ear completely flat.

I felt as if I'd been slammed between two Dumpsters. It was like every case of the flu you've ever had, at one time. My arms and my legs and my hands all felt as if they weighed five thousand pounds. Every bit of my body was just in absolute pain. It was such a dull ache, and so sharp at the same time; it was like everything from a migraine headache to a hangover to needles being stuck in every millimeter of your body. My hair hurt, my eyelashes hurt; I could feel it when my hair moved, when the wind blew across me.

The lightning bolt had gone down along a tree next to us, taken off some branches on its way down, and then hit the overhang of the shelter, putting a huge hole in it. Then it went through Terry, one of my buddies. He was struck through the top of his head, and it came out his knee. It killed him immediately. Then it shot up from the ground and hit the rest of us. It went up through me and left an exit wound in my head that needed eight staples.

Now I have a hard time with addition and subtraction. I can handle some fairly complex math involving trigonometry and calculus, but don't ask me to add. The doctors say, "Oh, there's nothing wrong with you." But I know there is. Figuring out how to fix it, that's about like shooting mosquitoes with a shotgun.

BTW...You do know a Golf Club makes a perfect Lightning Rod!

Ride in an F/A 18 Hornet
Make sure and click on all 5 excerpts. What a Ride!!!
Make sure your sound is on.
This is very good. Be sure to watch all of the 'scenes' especially 'Scene 2'.
You have to click on each photo at the left to watch the scene.

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Hilarious