I was watering my flowers when an 8-foot Burmese python slid across my backyard...

 

I Was Watering My Flowers When an 8-Foot Python Disappeared Under Our Shed—Then the X-Ray Revealed What Was Inside Its Swollen Stomach

PART 1

I was watering my flowers when an 8-foot Burmese python slid across my backyard and disappeared beneath our shed.

But seeing the snake wasn’t the part that frightened us most.

It was the enormous bulge in its stomach.

And when animal control finally managed to get it out and took an X-ray, we learned exactly what the python had swallowed.

It started as a completely ordinary afternoon.

I was outside our home in Freehold, New Jersey, watering flowers when I noticed movement near the yard.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at.

Something long was moving through the grass.

Then more of it appeared.

And more.

My brain finally caught up with my eyes.

Snake.

A very, very large snake.

I stopped moving.

This wasn’t a little garter snake you’d expect to see around a garden.

It was massive.

Thick-bodied.

And moving steadily toward our shed.

I called for my husband, Ed.

By the time he came outside, the snake was already disappearing through a hole near the corner of the shed.

We stood there staring at each other.

“What was that?”

Neither of us wanted the answer.

Ed contacted the Monmouth County SPCA.

Animal control officers arrived and began examining the area around the shed.

Then they saw part of the snake.

Even they were surprised.

Officer Scott Crawford later explained that everyone’s jaws dropped when they realized what they were dealing with.

A Burmese python.

Approximately eight feet long.

In New Jersey.

It absolutely did not belong there.

The snake had found a hole near the corner of our shed and crawled underneath, apparently deciding the dark protected space made a perfectly comfortable hiding place.

The rescuers initially thought removing it would be straightforward.

Find the hole.

Carefully pull the snake back through.

Secure it.

Done.

Except there was a problem.

A very large problem.

When they got a better look at the python’s body, they noticed its stomach.

The middle of the snake was enormously swollen.

It had eaten recently.

And whatever it had swallowed was big.

Suddenly, pulling the python through the small opening wasn’t an option.

Forcing that swollen section through the hole could seriously injure the animal.

The rescuers tried to figure out another way.

There wasn’t one.

The snake was underneath the shed.

The entrance was too small.

And its enormous meal had effectively trapped it.

So they called a contractor.

And that’s when our quiet afternoon turned into something I never imagined I’d see in my own backyard.

The contractor began tearing up sections of the shed floor.

Board after board came away.

Finally, rescuers could reach the python from above.

But even then, they couldn’t simply lift it out.

Part of its body was wedged beneath the structure.

They had to dig around it.

Slowly.

Carefully.

Nobody wanted to injure the snake.

And there was another unsettling problem.

At one point, the rescuers couldn’t clearly determine where its head was.

Imagine standing over an eight-foot python, digging around its body…

while not being entirely sure where the biting end is.

Eventually, after a careful struggle, they freed it.

That’s when everyone got a proper look at the bulge.

Whatever this python had eaten wasn’t small.

And now a new concern began spreading among the people standing around our yard.

We lived in a residential area.

People had dogs.

Cats.

Small pets.

An eight-foot Burmese python was absolutely capable of swallowing a sizable animal.

What if someone’s pet had disappeared?

The rescuers couldn’t tell what was inside simply by looking at the snake.

There was only one way to know.

They took the python back for a medical examination.

Then they placed it under an X-ray.

When the image appeared on the screen, the mystery was finally over.

Something was clearly visible inside its stomach.

And everyone was about to learn exactly what our unexpected backyard visitor had eaten.

---

PART 2

The X-ray answered the question almost immediately.

Inside the python was an entire animal.

Fortunately, it wasn’t someone’s missing dog.

It wasn’t a cat.

It was an opossum.

As unpleasant as that outcome was for the opossum, there was relief in knowing a family’s beloved pet hadn’t disappeared into the snake.

For an eight-foot python, however, the meal wasn’t particularly unbelievable.

The much stranger question was how the python itself had ended up there.

Burmese pythons aren’t native to New Jersey.

You don’t expect to walk outside a family home in Freehold and find one casually moving through the backyard.

Yet there it was.

Healthy enough to hunt.

Large enough to consume an opossum.

And apparently comfortable enough in the local environment to make a home underneath a shed.

Officials began considering the most likely explanation.

Someone may once have kept the python as an exotic pet.

Burmese pythons can be legally owned in New Jersey with the proper permit.

But there’s a problem people sometimes fail to consider when they buy exotic animals.

They grow.

A lot.

A tiny snake can eventually become an extremely large, powerful animal requiring specialized housing, food and experience.

Officials suspected someone may have reached the point where they could no longer handle the python.

And instead of finding a qualified person or facility to take it, they may have simply released it.

If that’s what happened, the owner didn’t solve their problem.

They transferred it to everyone else.

The snake was now living in an ecosystem where it didn’t belong.

It was hunting native wildlife.

And it had ended up underneath a family’s shed.

We couldn’t know how long it had been roaming around.

Maybe days.

Maybe longer.

I kept thinking about how casually I’d walked into the yard that afternoon.

I’d gone outside to water flowers.

How many times had I walked past that shed?

How long had that enormous snake been nearby without any of us knowing?

And what would have happened if I hadn’t noticed it?

The python could have remained beneath the shed.

Once it finished digesting the opossum, it could have moved again.

Maybe into another yard.

Maybe somewhere with chickens.

Maybe somewhere with a small pet.

Nobody could know.

But now that rescuers had captured it, another decision had to be made.

The python couldn’t simply be released somewhere else.

It didn’t belong in New Jersey’s wild ecosystem.

At the same time, the animal hadn’t chosen to be there.

If a person really had abandoned it, the snake itself wasn’t responsible.

It was simply surviving wherever someone had left it.

So the SPCA had to find somewhere appropriate for an eight-foot Burmese python to go.

And fortunately, they did.

But before the animal left their care, officials had one final message for whoever might have been responsible for putting it there.

Because abandoning an exotic pet doesn’t give that animal freedom.

Sometimes it gives it a death sentence.

And sometimes it creates a much bigger problem for everyone else.

---

LAST PART

The python survived.

After its examination, the Monmouth County SPCA arranged for it to be placed with a qualified reptile expert who had the proper permits, experience and housing required to care for an animal that large.

And there was even better news.

If no properly permitted owner came forward to claim it, the python wouldn’t be dumped somewhere else.

It would have a safe home for life.

For our family, that meant the strangest visitor we’d probably ever find beneath our shed was finally gone.

For the python, it meant something more important.

It was finally somewhere it actually belonged.

The whole experience also carried a warning.

Exotic animals should never simply be released into the wild when their owners can no longer care for them.

An animal doesn’t suddenly become native to an ecosystem because someone opens a cage and walks away.

And a predator as capable as a Burmese python can have serious consequences for local wildlife.

The opossum inside this snake was evidence enough that it had already learned how to survive.

There was also an uncomfortable thought that stayed with us afterward.

What if Leslie hadn’t looked down at exactly the right moment?

The python could have disappeared beneath the shed unnoticed.

Nobody would have called animal control.

Nobody would have removed the floorboards.

Nobody would have taken the X-ray.

We might have continued walking around our own backyard without realizing an eight-foot predator was living only feet away.

Instead, one ordinary afternoon ended with animal-control officers, a contractor dismantling part of a shed, an enormous python being carefully dug free and an X-ray revealing an opossum inside its stomach.

Not exactly what you expect when you step outside to water the flowers.

But perhaps the strangest part of the entire story is that there wasn’t really a villain.

The family hadn’t done anything wrong.

The rescuers were trying to protect everyone involved.

And the python was simply behaving like a python.

If it really had once been someone’s pet, it hadn’t asked to be abandoned in New Jersey.

It found shelter.

It found food.

And it survived.

Thankfully, this time the story didn’t end with someone killing the snake out of fear.

Professionals removed it safely.

They discovered what it had eaten.

They found appropriate care.

And the family got its backyard back.

The opossum, unfortunately, wasn’t so lucky.

But the outcome could easily have been worse.

Because when rescuers first saw the size of that bulge, they knew an animal large enough to swallow an opossum could potentially have taken somebody’s pet instead.

So if there’s one image Leslie and Ed probably won’t forget, it isn’t simply an eight-foot snake.

It’s an ordinary afternoon.

A garden hose.

A little movement in the grass.

And the realization that something enormous had been quietly sharing their backyard without them knowing.

Sometimes the wildest stories don’t begin deep in a forest.

Sometimes they begin when you’re watering your flowers—and eight feet of python disappears underneath your shed.