Florida child strangled by Python

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

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House where child was strangled by Python

A two-year-old girl was strangled by a python at her family's home in Oxford. Slideshow-2 images

OXFORD, Fla. -- A two-year-old girl was strangled by a python at her family's home in Oxford.

Shaiunna Hare died in her home in Oxford, just off of County Road 466, east of The Villages.

The snake was a 12-foot long albino Burmese python and was a family pet.

According to Lt. Joy Hill with Florida Fish and Wildlife, Charles Darnell, the boyfriend of the child's mother, Jaren Hare, put the python away in an aquarium and when he woke up around 9 a.m., he found the aquarium was empty. He ran to Shaiunna's bedroom and found the snake on top of the her.

Darnell said he had to stab the snake to get it off Shaiunna, and he said he noticed a bite mark on the her head.

The Sumter County Sheriff's Office and Florida Fish and Wildlife responded to the scene and are investigating the circumstances surrounding the child's death. There were other children in the home.

More Information

Hill said that the snake is not venomous, it is a constrictor, meaning it suffocates its victims.

Whit Gibbons, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, told the Associated Press that "A human is just another prey item to a python -- especially a small human.

"A 20-foot python, if it grabbed one of us, would bite us and then within just, instantly, seconds, it would be wrapped all the way around you and squeezing the life out of you," Gibbons said.

Oxford is northwest of Leesburg.

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