Bitten by Pamela Nagami M.D

Author:Pamela Nagami, M.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2012-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

The Komodo’s habitat islands may be remote, but they are not uninhabited. In fact, the Sultan of Bima established a penal colony there in 1915. Today the villagers on these islands often live in close proximity to the monitors and may lose dogs, goats, and other livestock to dragons. Attacks on humans are rare, however, numbering perhaps twelve in the last sixty-five years.

In 1931 a father and his two sons sat in a clearing in the forest on Komodo Island, cutting and trimming wood. Suddenly a dragon about seven feet long started to move toward the seated men. When the dragon was fifteen feet away, they jumped up and started to flee. The dragon charged the fourteen-year-old boy and bit him severely in the buttocks, tearing away his flesh. The boy bled to death in under a half hour.

In 1987 on the island of Rinca, just east of Komodo, a six-year-old boy living in a stilt house climbed down the ladder and was attacked by a dragon. Hearing his screams, his parents rushed to the rescue. They were able to pull their son away from the dragon, but he was severely bitten in the legs, groin, and shoulder, and died in his mother’s arms.

In another attack on Komodo that occurred in the 1950s, four men were hunting water buffalo near the territory of a very aggressive dragon designated 34W One of the men became ill and was left behind. When the hunters returned with some villagers the next day, they found the man dead. His internal organs had been eaten by dragons, and his limbs had been stripped of flesh. In this case, it is uncertain whether the man was killed by the lizards or only eaten after he died.

A similar case occurred in 1989, when an elderly Swiss man landed on a remote area of Komodo Island with a tour group. After feeding the resident Komodos with goat meat, the group settled down for lunch. The Swiss man, however, decided that he wanted to go back to the boat, and set off alone.

Several hours later the main group returned to the boat, but there was no sign of the man, even after as extensive a search as was possible, given their limited food and water supply. The next day, one hundred searchers returned, but all they were able to find were his glasses and his camera. Komodo dragons eat most of the tissues of their kills, including bone, hide, and hoofs. It seems likely that Komodos had eaten the man, but whether he was attacked and killed or only eaten after having died or fainted is a mystery that will never be solved.

In fact, Komodo dragons are notorious scavengers of dead bodies; inhabitants of the islands have to seal graves with hard clay to prevent the remains from being dug up and devoured.

In addition to these cases, there are two unconfirmed deaths due to dragon attacks. According to villagers, in 1947 a policeman from the island of Flores ,

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