A Florida woman is being accused of child abuse after she posted a video to Facebook showing her allowing a red rat snake to bite her one-year-old daughter as a “teachable moment.”
The video shows a mother from Sebring, Florida, placing a plastic bin containing the snake up close to her baby who was sitting in a walker. The infant is then seen reaching out to the snake only to have the reptile making a lightning strike at the child’s outstretched hand.
The stunned little girl begins crying in shock as the mother laughs at the incident.
But the mother is defending her decision to allow the snake to bite her daughter, telling Tampa’s ABC Action News that it was a way to teach her daughter about animals, the Associated Press reported.
The woman insisted that the snake was too young to be dangerous and that its teeth were too small to leave a mark. She says her child was never in any real danger and thought she did the right thing to “introduce” the snake to her baby. Rat snakes are non-venomous and are constrictors.
“My intent was never to hurt her,” the woman told the TV reporter. “It had bitten me and my son and didn’t leave a mark, several times. So, I thought it was a good opportunity to introduce her without actually getting hurt. His teeth are too small to actually puncture the skin.”
The mother added that she teaches all her children about the dangers of wildlife as the family lives on a rural nine acres.
“People are too sensitive and don’t bother to ask ‘why;’ they just think that I hurt my child intentionally,” she said in defense of her actions. “People that know me know that I would never hurt my children,” she added.
The woman added that she was teaching her daughter to steer clear of snakes, just as she learned to do from her father who was a Jupiter, Florida, police officer.
She has since deleted the Facebook video.
ABC confirmed that the Highland County Sheriff’s office was investigating the incident, but no charges have been filed.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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