A man who tried to get eaten alive by a giant snake rued his decision immediately as it began to happen.
Ask most self-respecting conservationists and they’ll tell you that there’s very little they wouldn’t do to instigate the change they want to see in the world. Declining habitats, increasing threats to certain species of animal, and the undeniable prospect of climate change are issues that a lot of individuals are desperate to tackle.
Yet few of them would ever conceive of going to the same lengths as Paul Rosolie, an explorer and wildlife enthusiast who spent years studying the ecosystem of the Amazon Rainforest.
Having witnessed the destruction and degradation firsthand, Rosolie devised a plan so shocking that the world would be forced to sit up and take notice: he would be eaten alive by an anaconda.
Eaten alive by snake
Now, before we go any further let us assuage the biggest concern you may have. The plan, drastic though it most certainly was, was for Rosolie to survive the swallowing. That is to say that he wanted to be consumed by the snake, then pulled out before he could be digested.
All of which begs the obvious question: how is this even possible?
Well, Rosolie had a custom-made suit created, one that could theoretically withstand the devastating pressure of the snake’s squeeze, as well as the process of being eaten. The suit was equipped with a built-in oxygen supply, as well as cameras so that Rosolie could document his harrowing brush with death.
The wild (in both senses of the word) experiment was captured in a documentary for the Discovery Channel, and saw Rosolie instigate an anaconda attack by approaching one in the rainforest and provoking it.
Snake attack
The snake in question duly obliged, latching onto his arm with its teeth and proceeding to wrap its coils around his body. Rosolie described every moment of the attack to the team waiting nearby.
“I’m getting coils over me,” Rosolie can be heard saying. “She’s got my arms pinned. She knows there’s nothing I can do.”
As the anaconda’s grip tightened, Rosolie’s heart rate soared and his breathing became labored. He was spared injury thanks to his modern suit, but there can be no doubting the obvious distress he was in.
“I’m calling it!” he cried eventually. “I need help.”
His team were then able to perform an extraction before Rosolie was swallowed whole.
The stunt, though undoubtedly terrifying for Rosolie, succeeded in sparking a conversation about conservation with regards to the Amazon Rainforest.
In an interview with Today, Rosalie said: “It actually started with me watching the rainforest get burned and getting really frustrated that people weren’t as excited about it as I was.
“I wanted to do something that was going to grab people’s attention.
“People have tried everything else. I work down there year after year, and you see this habitat being destroyed.”
Watch the video here: