Snake eats tongs - level 3
A pet python called Winston has undergone surgery to remove a pair of barbecue tongs it had swallowed. Vets at Adelaide University in Australia operated on the woma python because they weren't sure he'd be able to regurgitate the tongs without causing itself internal injuries.
The outline of the tongs inside Winston could be seen lodged in his stomach and these X-ray images later revealed the item wedged inside. The snake drama unfolded when Winston’s owner Aaron used the tongs to feed a dead rat to him which he then gripped on to. Aaron was unable to free the tongs so left them with Winston only to return later to find he'd swallowed them whole.
Snakes do have an ability to regurgitate food if they change their mind, but vets weren’t convinced Winston was going to even if he tried.
He is reported to now be making a good recovery.
Difficult words: python (a large snake which has no venom – poison), tongs (a tool you use to lift up small things), regurgitate (to bring back food), internal injury (injury on the inside of a body), lodged (firmly fixed), item (a thing), wedged (stuck), unfold (happen).