Girl, 12, swings python around head to save pet guinea pig
A 12-YEAR-OLD Australian girl saved her pet guinea pig from the jaws of a 6ft-long snake by swinging the reptile above her head “like a hammer thrower”.
Rosie Whitman discovered the python wrapping itself around her pet, Maxibon, in her family’s back garden on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“I saw the snake wrapping, wrapping and wrapping itself around his neck, so tight,” she later told Australian network 9News in an interview, while stroking the rescued pet on her lap.
“He was trying to fight it off, so I was like, ‘I have to help him.’ So I grabbed the snake and swung it around.”
Luke Whitman, Rosie’s father, heard his daughter “screaming at the top of her lungs” before he found her swinging the snake “like a hammer thrower”.
Footage from security camera overlooking the garden shows Rosie grabbing the reptile’s tail and whirling it around in the air – all while it continues latching on to Maxibon.
Mr Whitman then snatches the snake and hurls it across the lawn, after which it slithers away.
“To be honest, I only grabbed it because it was in Rosie’s hands. I was like, ‘if a 12-year-old, my daughter, can hold it, so can I,’” he said.
“I just had to jump in. It was just instinct, to try and get rid of the danger. It was an absolutely insane moment,” he added. “I chased after it and watched it slither away unhurt, although a little dizzy.”
The snake’s species has not been confirmed but its colouring suggested it could have been a juvenile python, which are common in bushland around the rural town of Eumundi, where the family live.
Rosie said she was not “scared” or “fazed” by the incident, adding she would do anything to protect Maxibon. “It was pretty full on, though,” she said.
However, her “terrified but proud ” parents warned their daughter against taking matters into her own hands should she have a similar encounter in the future.
“We’re so grateful you’re fine but next time, step away. We’ll buy you two more pigs,’” her mother, Grace Whitman, said.