There would seem to be at least one reasonably authenticated case of a snake eating a nearly adult human, of a Malay boy of fourteen attacked and swallowed on the island of Salebabu in Indonesia. It is possible that this is the same case that elbows saw displayed in the museum in Indonesia. (Cited in Living Reptiles of the World, 1957) by Karl Schmidt and Robert Inger, two well known herpetologists. Although this reference does not provide a date, other sources indicate it may have happened in the 1920s.) Although this case did not involve an adult, I would think it would certainly be possible for a very large snake to consume a small woman.
I attended a seminar here once by a researcher working on Anacondas in Amazonia. One of his field assistants, a young woman, was attacked by one during the course of the study, but fortunately was rescued by others. (On his chart of Anaconda prey species, he included a column labelled “field assistant.”) Anacondas certainly reach sufficient size to make it plausible that one could consume a small human.
Snakes may regurgitate recent prey items if they are disturbed. However, if they were suggesting the drug vials may have been crushed due to constriction by the snake, that’s just nonsense, especially if they were inside the victim. There’s no way the snake would be able to transmit enough force through the body to crush a small glass vial. (What kind of drugs, anyway? Heroin would probably make the snake nod off, which it would do anyway after a large meal. On the other hand, a large python on coke would be pretty scary.)
The attack by the snake, swallowing, and regurgitation would all be very violent processes. I couldn’t envision a chair that wasn’t bolted down still being upright after all that, much less the woman winding up on top of it.
Ditto that; I had always been taught that constrictors merely ‘took up the slack’ when the victim exhaled, restricting the expansion of the ribcage and thus preventing inhalation, but I saw a recent documentary (can’t remember where, but I seem to recall that it wasn’t a particularly poor-quality one) that asserted that large constrictors did actually crush their victims, even to the extent of breaking bones.
I turned against that show a LONG time ago with a cop shooting investigation that could have been solved in about 30 seconds, taking the whole friggin show. Major evidence against the cop was he had one less round in his magazine than would fit. Duh. Insert magazine, chamber round, VOILA! One less round in magazine. Happens every day. Cop said he never fired. SMELL THE WEAPON!
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So far it’s been reported in National Geographic and the NYT. Pretty reliable sources, as far as I know. Meanwhile, off to cancel that trip to Indonesia. Instead, I’ll be curled up in the corner whimpering.
