A St. James carpenter who filed a $5 million lawsuit against the pet store where an exotic lizard attacked him, causing a blood infection, insists there is no bad blood between him and the store.
"The lawsuit has nothing to do with friendship or the shop - it has to do with an injury," said Harry Bloechle, who was bitten on the thumb repeatedly Dec. 21 by a 15-inch female Timor Monitor lizard at the Reptile Center in Centereach.
The suit claims the store was negligent, provided inadequate supervision of the handling of the animal, and did not provide gloves or a muzzle.
"I still don't have full use of my finger," Bloechle said, adding that the pain in his hand inhibits his work. "It's hard to work a power saw if you can't press the button down."
Before the infection, Bloechle owned 17 exotic pets of his own, including two Monitor lizards. "I've never been bit by any of my own," he said.
Because he is prone to infection, on doctor's orders, he unloaded all 17 - at the very place he's suing. It's one of the only stores in the area specializing in rare snakes, lizards and amphibians.
Though the lawsuit accuses the store of "hiring incompetent personnel," and Bloechle said the clerks were "goofing around" when he came in, he admitted the clerks were typically experienced.
The Reptile Center's Internet Web site reads, "Our staff has over 60 years combined experience," and "We have only mature people working for our company."
The Monitor, the breed of lizard that snacked on Bloechle's thumb, typically prefers pinkies. But not the human kind; pinkies is lingo for hairless baby mice, which the shop sells frozen.
On the day Bloechle was bitten, he spotted the 15-inch female lizard skittering in her terrarium near the front of the pet store.
"I'm always in the market for an animal," he said. "They said, 'Check this one out, it doesn't bite.'"
"When you're told it doesn't bite, you handle it in a different manner," he added.
But that's when the mini-monster, which comes from the same family as the Komodo dragon, attacked his thumb.
"He readjusted his bite, so he really got the bacteria in the finger," Bloechle said.
Bloechle stuck the lizard's head in a murky turtle tank nearby, and the reptile released its jaws.
The Monitor lizard, a slight and shy, brown-spotted thing, is still for sale at the shop - for $150.
Bloechle neither rushed to a hospital nor visited a doctor following the bite. Until his hand "looked like a baseball mitt" on Dec. 26, he didn't realize how bad it was.
A clerk at the pet shop this week aired doubts of Bloechle's account, but he refused to comment further for this story, citing the lawsuit. The shop's owners did not return calls seeking comment.
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