Python Strangles Snake Charmer During Live Show

A snake charmer performing a live show had a brush with death when his python began to strangle him.

A snake charmer in Mau, India was hospitalized after his pet python wrapped around his neck and began strangling him during a live show on Tuesday, March 20. Video of the incident, in the central Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, shows the man performing the act with the python, holding the snake over his shoulders and allowing it to wrap around his neck.

Within minutes, however, the snake's hold tightens and the man is seen collapsing to the ground. Onlookers, presuming that it is part of the act, do not immediately rush to the man's help.

According to the Daily Mail, three men eventually rushed to the man's aid and managed to pry the python from around his neck. He was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors treated him and referred him to a second hospital. The man's current condition is not known.

In August, a man in Hampshire, England died of asphyxiation after his eight-foot African rock python called Tiny wrapped itself around him.

Dan Brandon, a 31-year-old exotic animal lover, was found dead on Aug. 25 by his mother, Babs Brandon, in his bedroom in Hampshire, England, with the python close by outside of its cage.

The coroner for north-east Hampshire, Andrew Bradley, said he believed the massive snake was "instrumental" in Brandon's death. He also stated that he did not believe the python was acting aggressively toward Brandon, and that instead the most likely scenario was that the reptile had been coiling around him in an affectionate way.

"The most likely scenario is that that Tiny was engaged with Dan. I have no doubt she was coiling around him. There was a point at which either she took hold of him unexpectedly or trips him up or there is some other mechanism. She then makes off maybe because of the shock of him falling or the shock of his reaction. I have to accept that Tiny is instrumental in Dan's death," Bradley said.

During a postmortem, pathologist Dr. Adnan al-Badri found that Brandon's lungs were four times heavier than would be expected and he had suffered pinpoint hemorrhages in one of his eyes – signs of asphyxia. He also had a recently fractured rib.