- I'm here with my friend Dingo and some deadly snakes
but these snakes are actually more dangerous to Dingo.
- I'm allergic to cobra venom.
Now this over here, West African forest cobra.
One of my favorite snakes in all the world.
Beautiful black, normally quite aggressive.
Comes at you like a ton of bricks
but this one here, absolutely spectacular.
Excellent climbers, excellent swimmers.
Really good at going through the brush
and about the third most venomous snake on my continent,
the African continent.
- Even this mildly venomous snake,
like this false water cobra,
could actually be deadly to a guy like Dingo
and as you can see, we play with it all the time.
So Dingo, tell me a little bit about your allergy to venom
and some of your close calls that you've had.
- So I've had two massive anaphylactic reactions
which is basically protein in this venom,
my body reacting against it, shuts me down.
Blood pressure drops, I'll die within a matter...
If this snake bites me I'm dead within
about a minute to minute and half
and this snake's got a lot of venom.
So you see these big venom glands here?
Full up a venom. so he's gonna bite you
and like a king cobra, he's gonna hold on
and he's gonna pump and the liquid venom
is just an Amber color, it's one of
the most incredible things I've ever seen.
But they bite super hard
and I'll go into anaphylaxis almost instantly.
That'll be it, I'll die in America.
- We won't want that to happen
but you were in Bolivia once and you did almost die
and that was from a snake
that wasn't even considered venomous.
- Yeah, a medically nonsignificant snake
actually bit me on the hand,
massive allergic reaction within two minutes.
- You were five hours away from the nearest hospital?
- Yes, so we had to go in a dugout canoe
for an hour on the river.
We had to go in an ambulance and I use that word lightly.
Then we had to get airlifted out.
We had to bribe someone to airlift us out of the jungle
and into an ICU and I had about 57 shots of epinephrin
during that two day period to try and keep me alive.
(helicopter beeps) (dramatic music begins)
- And when you got to the hospital,
you weren't out of the woods by a long shot?
- No, I woke up in the hospital waiting there,
drip in my arm, giving me adrenaline and epinephrine
and then what happens is the nurse, she speaks Spanish.
She starts taking that drip outta my arm
and I'm like if that drip comes out, I'm gonna die.
So I'm trying to talk to her, she's Spanish.
We're very confused having a bit of an argument about it.
Fortunately, my medic came and got a new drip in
before we changed across and then we spent two days
just getting all that adrenaline through my system.
As soon as the adrenaline stops in the drip for a bit,
I get quite itchy and stuff like that.
Like Jason's watching that
and we're just waiting for it to wear off
and then we can get out of here and carry on,
but it'll be tomorrow sometime.
This is the room, it's not bad.
It's got an air conditioner, that's cool.
First one we've seen in Bolivia.
That is very cool, I'm stoked about that.
Otherwise feeling okay.
Love you lots, sorry, bye.
- So why in the world would you continue
to mess with animals like this
with the dangers that you go through?
- Have you ever seen a prettier snake
than this forest cobra over here?
You're looking at this, you looking at
one of the apex predators of Africa.
My home land.
These snakes here, they're not scared of elephants.
They're not scared of rhinos.
They're not scared of people.
They stand their ground.
They show how big, how tough they are.
The world's longest true cobra.
I absolutely love them.
- And you just can't get away from it, right?
You just can't.
Doesn't matter the danger, you've gotta take
more precautions now than typical, right?
- Absolutely, so that's why I've got the glove on.
We've got all our epinephrin, we got everything ready to go.
How do you look at animal like this
and not want to interact with it?
Not fall in love with it?
Every time these animals come out,
I feel like like I'm falling more and more in love,
building more of a connection with them.
- I can understand that.
I mean, it's absolutely incredible, you know?
I mean, I look up to people like you
because of your experience with these animals
and being able to just read them so well,
it's just absolutely incredible being this close
to such a majestic animal, isn't it?
- Absolutely, and a snake that can choose to bite us
if it wanted to, we are in strike range now.
We're trying to be as careful as we can
but it's choosing not to.
So it could bite us, it's choosing not to.
It's standing it's ground.
It's being a really, really good cobra.
- Well, this isn't the only amazing animal
we're gonna see today but it's gonna be
hard to top this one.
So you're able to actually handle these animals
'cause you have these special gloves
and you brought a bunch of different things to keep you safe
when you're handling venomous animals on this trip.
Tell me a little bit first about the gloves
and what else you brought.
- I've got about six pairs of these gloves.
Hex gloves protect me against most snake bites, really.
So anything like this, like this little spectacle cobra.
If this was to bite me now, not gonna go through the gloves,
that's why we can and handle it like this
and then I've got all my epinephrin, I've got steroids,
we've got a whole bunch of stuff.
Hard to get through TSA with most of this stuff.
- I was gonna say, how is that?
When you're getting through vials of medicine,
what did they say?
- Almost got strip-searched.
Almost had to take my kitters off to go check
what's hidden in the crevices on my body,
you know what I mean?
But we got through so we've got all the doctors' medication
and all their letters and stuff
because I've got more medicine on me right now
than most pharmacies do.
- Exactly, but this snake is absolutely gorgeous, isn't it?
- Lovely, I love also you can see it's a Sri Lankan
because look at the yellow on the back of the hood there.
Isn't it beautiful?
And they're probably the most famous snake
in the world in terms of hooding.
- The shows with the little flutes?
This is what you think of when you
think of a Cobra right?
I think it's amazing.
- I could be a snake charmer if my glove was a flute,
look at it, isn't that incredible?
- Absolutely amazing.
So as a matter of fact,
I see a little venom on the glove itself.
So we might wanna be a little bit careful
'cause we don't want you,
literally that venom gets into your nasal
and you're gonna start to break out, right?
- Yeah, so now if that venom touches me
anywhere in my skin or if I breathe it in,
I'm gonna break out in welts all over my neck.
I'm gonna start sneezing, that's one of the first signs
and I'll get itchy.
I touch anywhere by my eyes or do that
when there's venom around me.
then my eyes will start shutting down.
But it'll be in a matter of about a minute or so.
Or if he (indistinct) at me.
- So we better get through this fast.
We don't want anything to happen to Dingo
and by the way guys, do me a huge favor.
If you wanna see awesome content like this all the time,
you can go over to Dingo's channels, show him some love.
He has the most insane stuff going on over there.
Gonna have all the links in the description,
go tell him I sent you.
Dingo, tell me a little bit about these black forest cobras.
- The black ones, North Africa.
This here, you can see the hood marking
on the back of the hood there, looks like a skull.
Can't belief we can get this close to a forest cobra.
This is the most chilled out forest cobra I've ever seen.
But it's got that skull mark and that tells me it comes
from Togo (indistinct) right up Northwest Africa
and they actually are the most crazy
of all the forest cobras that we find throughout Africa.
- Not this one. - Not this one, look at it!
You could pick it up and lift it up to the camera
and it's just gonna stay hooded.
- Now you have some forest cobras
that are a lot different, huh?
- We would have these forest cobras
attached to our beak if it was off.
We've got Shadow and Storm, absolutely psychotic.
They'd be chasing us around the room,
we'd be climbing up all the enclosures here
trying to get away from them.
But that's what I love about these animals
and this snake's got the potential to do that too.
But it's choosing not to, it's really intelligent.
- Dingo, I've got a treat for you.
This is one of my favorite snakes.
I love this animal. (snake rattles)
Woo, so gorgeous.
Look at that thing, right?
- That is dark.
- This of course is a timber rattlesnake, but a black one.
Look at that little monkey right there.
If you guys don't remember,
we actually did a venom test with this one.
Put a carton right here on it, absolutely incredible.
Look how many buttons he has.
- That is beautiful.
How old would you say this rattler is?
- It's about five, five and a half years old.
- I've only ever worked in one timber rattler before
but it wasn't this dark and this beautiful.
- I know, isn't it incredible?
This is one of the darker ones I've seen too.
Name is Burt, by the way.
- Burt, not Midnight, not Black Beauty,
not Night Fury, but just Burt.
- Beautiful animal and it was amazing
what this venom actually did.
Now, the Northern ranges are more hematoxic.
The Southern ranges are actually more neurotoxic,
believe it or not.
So depending on where this animal is from,
it's gonna depend on what the venom actually is
which makes it really interesting.
The effects this had on my blood
were really quite interesting.
Within a matter of an hour, my blood was literally
just like liquid, like water.
- [Dingo] Timbers, they can get quite big?
- [Brian] Well, this is pretty big here.
They'll get a little bit larger,
but not much larger than that.
This is a pretty larger animal right here.
- Now what scares me about rattlesnake venom,
as you're saying there,
as the locality changes, the venom changes.
So from what I've seen, I've had mates up,
Rob, who got bitten by so Pacific rattlesnake,
but the impact in the venom on him
was absolutely catastrophic
and really difficult for doctors to treat
'cause there's all these concoctions
and different things happening if you get bit.
So if I get bitten then it seems like
a really a difficult snake bike to treat.
Absolutely, I mean, when you literally get
into some Mojave rattlesnakes, for instance,
or even pygmy rattlesnakes, you think of pygmy rattlesnakes
as not very venomous, right?
But there are certain ranges of pygmy rattlesnakes
that are actually very, very toxic and can kill you.
So again, it just depends on where it's from
and what the venom structure is,
that protein in the venom can be radically different.
Myotoxin, hematoxin, neurotoxin, cardiotoxin.
I mean, it have all kinds of different things
and it really depends so it does
make it a really difficult thing
if say something like CroFab doesn't work.
If it's a neurotoxic bite, that CroFab isn't gonna do much.
- That's what worries me about rattlesnakes
is that seems like you've got so many.
Now in Africa, we've got puff adders.
With the puff adder, you've got cytotoxic, hematoxic,
that's it, gonna rot you off bad,
it's pretty simple to treat, you know?
Whereas these guys seem really, really complicated,
really difficult for most doctors to know what they're doing
when they're treating you from a rattlesnake bite.
- There you go, he's calming down now.
57 shots of an epi-pen.
What kind of effect does that have on you?
- As you're going down from your shock
you just feel like you can't breathe, you can't talk
and as you go down, next minute, the adrenaline hits.
They were giving it to me in my vein,
they weren't giving it in the shoulder.
So in the vein, next minute your whole body goes
do do do do do do do do
and it feels like you're almost being,
I don't know, levitating
and then do do do do
and then you can breathe again, you can talk again
and then you're back for about minute or two
and then you crash again.
Then it's another shot into your vein,
do do do do do
and they were giving me double the dosage
you would normally give somebody in the arm.
So it was a massive amount.
Top part of my heart stopped working for a period of time.
So we were really worried that I was either gonna have
a heart attack from all the epinephrine
or that it was gonna kill me,
the allergic reaction was gonna kill me.
- And yet here you are,
inches away from an animal
that could literally put you down.
That shows me the passion you have for this.
You just can't, you can't quit it, right?
- I can't, it's like a drug in all the good senses.
I want to take this animal
and bring it into people's living rooms
and bring it into their homes
and into some of you right now,
you're watching this sitting on a toilet, you dirty buggers
but you want to see this animal in your lives,
in your house because it's a beautiful animal.
It's a keystone species.
It's an animal that has a right to live and coexist with us
and we can coexist with these animals,
that's what it's about.
So we don't have to kill this animal
just because it may scare us.
Then we can coexist with it and look at this.
- Unbelievable.
Well, that's the thing.
The message is absolutely incredible.
A man that could literally die still continues
not only to work with them 'cause you're passionate,
you're just so committed to other people
loving these animals as well.
- That's what it's about.
It's about building a connection.
You might live in a place
you're never gonna see a forest cobra
and maybe that's a good thing.
It's not gonna come into your house
but you can still build a connection with it.
Through videos, through vlogs like yours,
people are seeing animals they'd never normally see
and they can fall in love with them
like we've fallen in love with them.
We wanna show people what we see right now.
So we're right here, how many inches is this?
- Five inches.
- Five inches away from a deadly cobra
and you can see the back of the hood,
you can see the skull marking on the back.
You can see these beautiful, shiny, glossy scales.
Little spark on the end of the tail
and the eye, look how clever they are here.
Look at that.
Even behind, it's got better peripheral vision than I do
and it's watching us and it's watching us.
It's just incredible that we can bring people
into our world so they see animals through our eyes.
- I could sit here all day with this cobra
and just chat with you.
I mean, it seems like it's enjoying the stories too.
- Yeah.
- [Brian] It's very curious, isn't it?
- Tongue flicking, flicking and it's not...
- No, it's definitely more like a food type.
Last up, we actually have an albino monocled cobra
but this monocled cobra is so mellow,
it acts more like a king snake, to be honest with you.
It can definitely still pack quite a bit of a punch
so we don't want to get bit, there's no doubt about that.
But what do you think, Dingo?
What do you think about a Cobra that doesn't hood?
(Dingo laughs)
- It's a bit of a rat snake, isn't it?
But I must say, monocled cobras,
my first experience with them, I went to India.
There were some spectacle cobras, obviously.
There were also some monocled cobras there and to see them
in their home ranges and their homeland is beautiful
and these guys of course now
come in all these magnificent colors,
I think, I dunno if this is sunset or whatever this is,
but they're beautiful snakes, very venomous.
- Yeah, yeah, they've got some nasty venom.
I mean, they're responsible for a lot of snake bites
over in India and a lot of times, honestly,
monocleds are usually very willing to bite.
This little one here seems like it just wants to hang out
and I gotta tell you, this is the first time
I've used these Hex gloves.
This is amazing, that I can actually touch a cobra
this close and not have to worry.
That is absolutely incredible.
- [Dingo] Amazing.
- I'm getting a pair of these for sure.
I mean, these are amazing.
I'm gonna buy a pair for Bruce too,
because he needs a pair just to be safe too.
This is incredible, but Dingo, you know,
it's amazing to have you here.
Like I said, go show him some love.
An amazing person, amazing message.
I can't say enough about you, man.
I tell you what, I love you to death and by the way,
you're gonna see him at Kevin McCurleys,
you're gonna see him at Gatorland,
you're gonna see him at Chandlers,
gonna see him at Crocodile Kyles.
He's gonna be all over the place over the next little bit.
So definitely watch their channels to see him as well
because it's absolutely incredible
and your family's amazing too.
- Thank you, man.
Well, thanks for having us because this has been
one of the highlights of all of our lives.
The last two days we spent with you have just,
it's changed our lives and we couldn't thank you enough.
You're a legend, you're a legend.
Brian Barczyk is a legend.
- And with that being said...
Hope you guys enjoyed today's video.
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Have a wonderful day Reptile Army.
Remember, be kind to someone
and I promise, I'll see you in the next one.