It's funny, this article sounds a little too familiar to me. In 1995 (I had only been keeping reptiles for a few years) I had an 11-12 foot albino burm. I'd had her for a while, and never had any problems from her, not even a hiss. One day I reached into her enclosure to take her out. Before I knew what hit me, most of my right hand was inside of her moth and she had coiled my arm and as I jumped back she also got a coil around my neck. I started to panic, and she started to tighten up around my arm and neck. I was home alone. The first thought that went through my head was "cold water", so I ran to the bathroom, jumped in the shower and turned the cold water on full blast (calling 911 had never even crossed my mind, nor would I have bothered, knowing that 99.9% of police officers or rescue people would have had no clue what to do). The cold water made her drop to the floor immediately. I think when snakes are "shocked" with ice cold water like that they let go, at least it worked for me. That was what I always consider to be my first "real" reptile bite (although I had been bitten by smaller snakes and lizards, but none that could have done any real harm to me). I learned from that, my lesson being to never handle any large snake when I am home alone, no matter how "tame" it has always been, I think that made me realize that anything with a mouth can (and probably eventually will) bite. My right hand still bears the scars of several of her teeth that broke off in my hand when she dropped when the cold water hit her. Any time I have ever thought about handling a large snake without someone to assist me if I need help, I just look at my hand and realize how lucky I was that all I have is a few scars from my encounter with my 11-12 foot python.