A 7-year-old boy was left nursing a head wound after an encounter with a seemingly harmless snake took a violent turn.
Usually, when videos appear on the salty_craft_family Instagram page, they are clips chronicling the surfing exploits of fearless siblings Kalea, 11, and Cruz, 7, from Queensland, Australia.
“We started the Instagram page in 2022 to document Kalea and Cruz fundraising for a local charity who had played a major role in cleaning up our waterways and beaches after catastrophic floods,” their mom, Kristy Craft, told Newsweek. “Kalea was 7 and Cruz was 4 and they were surfing for 30 days straight. Cruz had a bit of a meltdown about wanting to catch more waves. I posted the video and it went viral.”
That was the first in a series of viral videos for the family, with Cruz also gaining popularity for cracking jokes on Instagram. But the subject of one of their most recent videos was no laughing matter. Craft even makes a point of including a caption stating: “This is NOT a joke.”
In the clip, Cruz can be seen telling followers: “I got bitten on the head by a snake” before warning, “look away now if you don’t like blood.”
Craft opened up about what happened on the agreement that the name of the zoo involved be omitted from the story. She said what happened was purely an accident and it would be unfair for the zoo to draw any criticism.
“It was Kalea’s 11th birthday, so she had a few friends join for a night tour at the zoo. They got to visit all the nocturnal animals and watch them come alive,” she said. Towards the end of the tour, the children were invited to hold some of the snakes that reside at the zoo.
“There were two pythons, and all the kids had a turn at holding them,” Craft said. “We had just about finished when Cruz asked for one more hold of the carpet python. I walked over and filmed him.”
Craft had been taking pictures and filming videos to share with some of the other parents. When she first filmed Cruz’s second encounter with the carpet python, she assumed it had gone off without a hitch. She soon realized that wasn’t the case, though.
“Once he finished he stood next to me and started crying saying the snake bit him,” she said. “I reassured him it didn’t but he was adamant it did. I then shone the torch on his head and saw the blood.”
Craft had not noticed the python biting Cruz. “It happened so fast I never saw a thing,” she said. “It wasn’t until I looked at the video later on that you can see the moment the snake bites on his head.”
Looking back at the footage, Craft does not think there is anything Cruz could have done much differently to prevent what happened.
“Cruz was acting very calm as the snake was around his neck,” she said. “The snake was almost completely off and I think Cruz turned his head to see where the snake was and perhaps the sudden movement scared it.”
Deaths from snake bites in Australia are rare. A 2017 study published in the journal Toxicon found that around 55 people in Australia are hospitalized with snake bites and an average of just two deaths from such attacks are recorded each year.
There was never any danger of Cruz falling victim to this python—the snake involved is not venomous—and Craft isn’t ruling out him one day picking up a snake again, provided he wants to, of course.
“Both kids have held snakes a few times before and we have never had an issue. I guess you do put some level of faith into the handlers that the snake has a calm nature and has a high tolerance for being handled,” Craft said. “At the same time, they are wild animals and this proves that they can be unpredictable. We certainly won’t be rushing to hold snakes any time soon, but if Cruz decides he wants to try again, then we will support him.”
https://www.newsweek.com/boy-7-bitten-python-during-birthday-party-10870874
