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Snakebite leads to toilet phobia

“It was the snake’s signal for help when it bit me. If it hadn’t, maybe it would have been stuck in the septic tank and either suffocated or starved to death. It looked like an accident but it was actually fate.” — a Nantou County snakebite victim

A Nantou County man had an unpleasant surprise on Friday when a snake bit him on the scrotum as he sat on the toilet.

“I felt an excruciating pain in my lower body, like someone had stabbed me with a knife, shortly after sitting on the toilet bowl … I stood up immediately and saw blood oozing from my crotch,” the 50-year-old man, surnamed Lin (林), told reporters yesterday.

When he turned around and looked into the toilet, he saw a large snake in it, Lin said.

“I thought it might have been a poisonous snake. To prevent it from hurting anyone else I tried to flush the toilet several times but the snake would not go down the drain,” Lin said.

Failing to flush the snake, Lin shut the lid of the toilet and went to the hospital.

However, doctors needed to identify the snake that bit Lin to administer the appropriate antivenin, so Lin’s doctor asked Lin’s neighbors to catch the 170cm-long snake.

“The snake was a Taiwan Beauty Ratsnake [Orthriophis taeniura friesi], which is not venomous. If it were a poisonous snake, Lin would be lucky to be alive,” Lin’s doctor was quoted as saying.

Taiwan beauties are large non-venomous snakes that can reach up to 2m in length. The snake is a protected species, and are sometimes kept as pets by people.

Though it is hard to say how the snake got into the toilet bowl, Lin’s neighbors suspect it might have entered the plumbing system through Lin’s septic tank, which has a cracked lid, and then swum up the toilet for air.

Lin said he now has a phobia of toilets following the incident and will only use a newly purchased plastic toilet bowl.

However, he said he was glad the snake was released into the wild after it was identified.

“It was the snake’s signal for help when it bit me. If it hadn’t, maybe it would have been stuck in the septic tank and either suffocated or starved to death. It looked like an accident but it was actually fate,” Lin said.
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