OTTAWA — As an excuse for lateness, it beats a traffic jam.
Robert Stearns, a 60-year-old teacher originally from Ottawa, sent the following note to his school’s principal:
“I will be late tomorrow morning because I need to go to a doctor for follow-up treatment for a wound that I got this morning after wrestling with a python.”
He explained he had tangled with the snake on a hiking trail in rural Hong Kong to save the life of his cross-breed dog, Phoebe.
Stearns was walking his two dogs on May 23 when the snake shot out of undergrowth near the entrance to Sai Kung Country Park and grabbed the 33-pound Phoebe.
In an dramatic account, Stearns, who has three children and three grandchildren, wrote: “I bent the metal tip of my umbrella trying to repeatedly stab the body of the snake and then I tried with all my might to unwind the coils.
“But nothing was having any effect whatsoever. I could see that Phoebe was weakening. Her eyes had rolled back and her cries were low and muffled as the snake’s grip squeezed her breath out.
“I tried to pry open its jaws to free Phoebe, but that was useless, too. The snake was unbelievably strong. Finally, in desperation, I grabbed the snake’s tail and started heaving it backwards down the pathway.
“Miraculously, as I pulled, the snake uncoiled like a garden hose. … My other dog (a beagle) was agitated and barking in an effort to help, and Phoebe, now released from the snake’s coils, managed to twist her head, sinking her own teeth into the snake.”
Once Phoebe, who is 18 months old, was free, Stearns and the dogs fled. Phoebe was later treated by a vet who also bandaged one of Stearns’ thumbs, which was cut by the snake’s teeth.
Then Stearns sent his note to the principal.
The snake was believed to be a Burmese python, which generally crush the life out of their victims before ingesting them. The attack on Phoebe is the third on a large dog in the same area since 2006. In the previous attacks, one dog died and the other was rescued by its owner.
Stearns, who has lived in Hong Kong for two years, reported the incident to park staff, expecting them to close the trail, but was told there was no point as the python might have moved on.
Stearns’ wife, Yvonne, who reached the scene of the attack within five minutes, said parents with small children should be careful on the trail.
“I wouldn’t trust that python,” she said. “He is hungry and he is big.”
Stearns said that, despite his experience, he did not want the python to be tracked down or removed. “It’s just trying to live its own life and I hope if it did suffer any wounds from Phoebe’s teeth that it recovers well,” he said. “I would just suggest people with pets and young children take care.”
Hong Kong’s rural New Territories are home to possibly thousands of Burmese pythons, which can grow up to five metres in length and live for 20 to 30 years.