Daily Mail

Reptile lover is choked to death ...by his python

- By Christian Gysin

A LOVER of exotic animals was found dead in his bedroom after his 8ft pet python choked him, an inquest heard yesterday.

Dan Brandon, 31, was asphyxiate­d when the African rock python, which he treated as his ‘baby’, coiled around him in a ‘show of affection’.

He is thought to be the first person in Britain to be killed by a python.

Mr Brandon, a gardener, started collecting snakes when he was just 15. By the time he died, he had ten snakes and 12 tarantulas in his bedroom in Church Crookham, near Fleet, Hampshire, the hearing was told.

He was known for his passion for keeping tropical animals and posted photograph­s on social media with his snakes wrapped around his body.

The python that killed him, a female he named Tiny, used to be small enough to fit in his hand. On the night of August 25 last year, his mother heard a bang from his room but assumed he had knocked something over.

However, when she went to check on him, she discovered her son face- down and unconsciou­s on the floor of his bedroom, which was packed with animal tanks.

Tiny was not in her tank, although the snake was finally found ‘ hiding’ under a cabinet, the inquest at Basingstok­e Coroners’ Court heard.

Mr Brandon’s parents, Babs and Derek, tried to perform CPR before paramedics arrived, but he could not be revived and was pronounced dead at the scene.

His mother described Tiny as his ‘baby’. Mrs Brandon said her son was never bitten by the snake, although it emerged there had been occasions when the 8ft 4in pet would ‘ strike out’ if she entered the room.

Recording a conclusion of misadventu­re, Coroner Andrew Bradley said: ‘Tiny was coiling around him, at which point I have no idea. There was a point at which either she takes hold of him unexpected­ly or trips him up or some other mechanism.’

The coroner said the snake lover was asphyxiate­d ‘as a result of contact with Tiny’. He added: ‘I do not believe in any way it was aggression from Tiny nor a confrontat­ion. If anything, it was a show of affection.’

A pathologis­t concluded that Mr Brandon died of asphyxiati­on after finding a haemorrhag­e behind one eye, burst blood vessels and congestion of the lungs.

Reptile expert Professor John Cooper said African rock pythons can be ‘temperamen­tal’ but usually ‘got to know their handlers’ and if Mr Brandon had been bitten, it would have been obvious.

In a statement Mrs Brandon described her son as ‘one of the funniest people you could wish to meet’. She said: ‘I cry every day and night and relive that evening all the time.

‘All the family wanted was answers, and I have no idea whether we have that or will.’

Pythons have been known to kill humans. But speaking last year after the incident, a Surrey and Hampshire Reptile Rescue spokesman said: ‘ There’s never been a case of a python killing someone in Britain before.’

 ??  ?? Danger: The python coiled itself tightly round Dan Brandon
Danger: The python coiled itself tightly round Dan Brandon

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