Florence man recovers after being bitten by inland taipan snake | Pee Dee News

FLORENCE – One of the world's most venomous snakes bit a Florence man in his apartment this month, drawing criticism from snake experts and highlighting the risks of handling deadly reptiles.

Jeffrey Leibowitz was bitten on Sept. 5 by an inland taipan, a snake native to Australia whose venom is said to be “the most venomous of any snake in the world,” said Jeffrey Camper, a biology professor at Francis Marion University.

“He shouldn't have done what he did,” Camper said. “Doing it with his bare hands, doing it freely, I think is just extremely reckless and irresponsible, and now he's paying the price for it.”

Leibowitz, who describes himself as a “digital creator” on Facebook, frequently posts videos of himself handling venomous snakes. He is the administrator of the classifieds site Venomous Snakes, which has 50,000 members.

In his videos, he talks to the snakes as if they were pets. He calls a rattlesnake “a cuddler.” He sings “Rock-a-Bye Baby” to a black forest cobra crawling up his arm. He meets a Gaboon viper and concludes, “Apparently we're cool.”

Just hours before he was bitten, Leibowitz posted a video of himself holding the inland taipan and explaining how he could control the snake's movements by gripping it in a certain way.

“You are in full control,” he said. “There is no reason to be so afraid.”

The night Leibowitz was bitten, he waited several hours before calling emergency services, which picked him up around 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 6, according to a Florence police report. Leibowitz told emergency services the inland taipan had bitten him on the web between his index finger and thumb.

According to the report, he did not give police any further details about the snake or the others in his home before he was taken to McLeod Regional Medical Center for treatment. However, he did post on the venomous snake classifieds site asking if anyone had anti-venom for an inland taipan and left the hospital's number.