I haven't been keeping reptiles for long, only since 2003. The "worst" bite (it wasn't bad at all) was when I was removing a large wild garter snake from a friend's basement and the only way to get it was by coming from the front. THey gave me big stiff leather gloves, but I couldn't feel to grasp him properly, so I finally said, "to heck with it" and took off the glove and picked him up. He tagged me, but the homeowner would have killed him if I didn't get him then. Stopped bleeding in less than five minutes.
We have a very nippy Blue Beauty, but the only time she actually managed to bite she didn't draw blood.
The worst bite overall I ever received was from my own cat that I had before I joined the Army. I had an enormous black cat named Salem (
I know....) who was trained to wear a leash. On Sept. 11, '01 I had the day off, and by midafternoon I just couldn't watch it anymore on my TV, so my friend and I decided to go to the park. I brought Salem on his leash.
I noticed he was starting to get nervous, and I was going to bring him back to the car, but I moved too slowly. Something scared him, and he tried to run away. When he couldn't flee (leash) he went berserk. Completely wild hindbrain took over. I had 18 lbs of insanity biting/scratching all over the leash arm. Every time I tried to pry his jaws off my arm, he'd bite sideways into my other hand. Shirt? Ruined. Pants? Wrecked. My friend had bolted for a blanket and finally came back and threw it over him, at which point we put him in the trunk of the car, drove him home, locked him in the bathroom, and my friend took me to the ER.
When the nurses in the ER weren't glued to the TV, they took turns coming in to see the "cat lady"...... I was glad to be entertaining, I guess. I was put on antibiotics right away and I still got cat scratch fever. I was out of work for 3 days, and couldn't drive my car or use doorknobs for two days. Oh, and Salem was his usual sweetheart self when I got home from the doctor's. I still wish I had gotten some pictures, though......