Number 10 Unnamed Czech Filmmaker In 2014, the member of a film crew
was attacked by a pet lion, in the Czech Republic, while shooting a documentary at the owner’s home.
53-year-old Ases Basista was living with two adult lions, Alex and Mijanka, which he’d raised since
they were cubs. Basista received constant complaints from his neighbors who described
the felines as “killers”. Nevertheless, he and his family maintained they weren’t aggressive.
Alex and Mijanka were allowed to roam freely around the house and Basista would often join
them in their rough and tumble antics. As the production crew arrived at their home, in Stupava,
Mijanka was wandering around the living room. Suddenly, she pounced on the back of a filmmaker
and sank her claws into his flesh. The owners were on standby and, after a brief struggle, managed to
wrestle her away. The filmmaker sustained minor flesh wounds. Even though it would’ve taken mere
seconds for Mijanka to inflict critical injuries, Basista insisted that “she was only playing”.
Number 9 Austin Hatfield
Florida teenager Austin Hatfield found a cottonmouth near his Wimauma home, in 2014,
and decided that it would be his new pet. Even though the snake possessed a deadly venomous bite,
18-year-old Hatfield kept it in a pillowcase, in his room. According to his best friend,
Jason Belcher, the teenager would kiss the snake on its head and mouth, completely disregarding
the dangers to which he was exposing himself. Cottonmouths are known to be somewhat skittish
in nature but will readily defend themselves if they feel threatened. On a Saturday night,
the snake slithered out of the pillowcase, across Hatfield’s stomach and off the bed. As the teen
tried to recapture it, he was bitten. Belcher was in the kitchen when Hatfield walked in and asked
to be taken to the hospital immediately. He was in critical condition on arrival
but was treated with antivenom and eventually stabilized. It was reportedly illegal for
Hatfield to have the cottonmouth at his home since keeping venomous snakes require special permits.
Number 8 Vladimir
In 2015, a 21-year-old Russian man, identified by his first name as Vladimir, was killed by the king
cobra he’d kept as a pet. The incident took place at the man’s apartment, in the city of Tolyatti.
It was there that, aside from the cobra, Vladimir also kept a green mamba and a red spitting cobra.
His social media featured numerous pictures of him and his venomous pets. His girlfriend, Anna,
claimed that he liked to play with the snakes and wasn’t afraid of them. She was in the apartment
when Vladimir was bitten by the cobra. The animal had reportedly attacked him as he was
trying to feed it. Anna immediately called an ambulance but there was nothing more that
the paramedics could for him when they arrived at the residence. Within minutes of the bite,
Vladimir had passed away in Anna’s arms. Number 7 Michal Prasek
33-year-old Michal Prasek kept two lions, a male and a female, in the back garden of his home,
in the village of Zdechov, Czech Republic. He didn’t have a license for the animals, which
he’d been breeding illegally and housing in cages of his own design. In spite of multiple fines and
concerns expressed by local residents, Prasek refused to relocate his exotic pets or to allow
anyone representing local authorities onto his property. They were at an impasse because
there was no evidence of animal cruelty and keeping the lions wasn’t outright illegal
due to a lack of alternative facilities in the country. Prasek made headlines, in 2018,
when he was out walking his lioness, on a leash, and a cyclist crashed into it. The
cyclist suffered some scratches that required treatment and local authorities, at the time,
deemed it a traffic accident. In 2019, Prasek’s father found him in the pen of his 9-year-old male
lion. He’d been fatally mauled and the pen was reportedly locked from the inside. Police were
called to the scene and shot both lions, an action they’d deemed had been “absolutely necessary”
in order for them to retrieve Prasek’s body. A local news outlet reported that the lioness
was pregnant at the time. Number 6 Dean Armstrong
In August of 2012, a man from Cambridge, England, nearly died after he was stung
by his pet scorpion. Dean Armstrong had grown up surrounded by exotic animals,
as his father had owned a zoo in the 1960s. Since his late teens, Armstrong had started his
own collection of reptiles and arachnids. He was in his early 40s, when he got Sue the scorpion
from a local pet shop. The owners had had trouble selling her because she only had one pincer,
which meant that she struggled to hold food. Armstrong was trying to feed her a cricket
when Sue whipped her tail over. The man had been stung or bitten by his pets numerous times but
remembered, at that moment, feeling fear for the first time. Within a minute of being stung,
Armstrong collapsed. Fortunately, he was almost immediately discovered by his cleaner,
who called the emergency services. He was rushed to Whipps Cross Hospital, in east London, where
he received a blood transfusion meant to flush the venom out of his system. When he woke up,
he was paralyzed on the right side of his body and he couldn’t speak. Armstrong was relieved,
about an hour later, when the effect had passed, not knowing that it was only the beginning of
his ordeal. The venom had severely damaged his pancreas and, weeks later, he was in surgery to
have the organ drained of the toxins. Another year passed before he suffered further complications
from the initial sting, when a cyst broke in his stomach and he started vomiting blood. Armstrong
underwent life-saving surgery. When he came to, doctors told him that they’d removed his stomach,
gallbladder, half his pancreas and some intestines. Even though he’d have to
carry a colostomy bag around for the rest of his life, Armstrong felt fortunate to have survived.
Number 5 Sharon Miller
In the late 1990s, Sharon Miller purchased a tarantula that her 8-year-old daughter had
wanted from a Lake Forest pet shop, in California. Miller knew that it could bite but that the venom,
baring a severe allergic reaction, generally had very low toxicity towards humans. However,
she was completely unaware of a second, and arguably more effective, defensive response.
The woman reached into the spider’s cage, to clean it, but suddenly felt discomfort in her eyes.
As she rubbed them, they became red and extremely painful. She compared the sensation to having
burning grains of sand in her eyes. What the pet store had reportedly failed to tell her was that,
when faced with larger attackers, tarantulas will flick their hind legs forward and fling hairs
from their abdomen into the air. The arachnids can be quite precise in directing their attack.
The hairs aren’t soft but more like minuscule barbs that are meant to affect their target’s
sight. Miller was left with blurred vision after several of the tarantula’s hairs got lodged in her
right eye. She subsequently sued the pet shop, for medical expenses and emotional distress,
arguing that they’d failed to warn her about the dangers of owning the exotic pet.
Number 4 Norman Buwalda
In 2010, Norman Buwalda, chairman of the Canadian Exotic Animal Owner's Association,
was fatally mauled by a massive tiger he’d kept at his property in Southwold, Ontario. Nobody
witnessed the attack which had claimed 66-year-old Buwalda’s life. A family member, who’d found his
mangled remains, was able to lock the 650-pound Siberian male in a separate portion of the cage.
When officers arrived at the scene, it was visibly agitated, pacing back and forth in its enclosure.
It hadn’t been the first attack to occur on Buwalda’s property. A few years prior, in 2004, a
person from Toronto suffered severe head and neck injuries after being mauled by one of his tigers.
They survived and recovered, with treatment. Southwold’s deputy mayor told a media outlet
that the township had lost a case that would’ve forced Buwalda to get rid of his exotic pets.
In a dark ironic twist, one of the animals that he’d fought so hard to keep ultimately ended his
life. The fate of the tiger remains unclear. Number 3 Daniel Brandon
On August the 25th of 2017, English man Daniel Brandon was killed by his pet African rock python
at his family’s home near Basingstoke, in North Hampshire. The 31-year-old had owned
the 8-foot serpent, named Tiny, since she was small enough to fit in his hand. In the wild,
an African rock python will use its formidable strength to constrict antelopes, monkeys and even
small crocodiles, which it then devours whole. Brandon kept several other snakes and was never
scared of Tiny, according to his mother. However, she reported that the snake would sometimes lash
out at her when she entered the room. On the night of Brandon’s death, the woman remembered a thud
coming from his room but thought that he’d knocked something over or dropped a piece of fitness
equipment. She later found him unresponsive and Tiny coiled under a cabinet. A coroner ruled,
“without doubt”, that Brandon had died from asphyxiation following contact with the python.
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Number 2 Soichiro Mori
In 2018, a Japanese man was mauled to death by the Asian black bear he’d been hired to
care for. 56-year-old Soichiro Mori had gone to the residence located northeast of Tokyo.
It was there that the bear’s owner, an unnamed 70-year-old man, was keeping it in an enclosure.
Based on the reports of local authorities, he had the necessary permits for the bear,
which stood at 4ft 2ins and weighed an estimated 110 pounds. Mori, who was the animal’s caretaker,
had entered the cage but, before long, a neighbor heard him screaming. The neighbor went to the
house and found Mori, severely mauled, in the animal’s enclosure. He was taken to the hospital,
where he was later pronounced dead. Number 1 Paul & Mandi McDonald
In 2019, an Australian couple was brutally attacked by a deer they’d kept at their farm
in Moyhu, northeast Victoria. 47-year-old Paul McDonald was feeding the Wapiti, a cross between
a red deer and an elk, when it unexpectedly lunged at him. His wife, 45-year-old Mandi, intervened
but sustained devastating injuries to her leg and upper body. Their teenage son witnessed the
incident and ran to get help. Police officers arrived at the scene and fatally shot the deer.
Mandi survived but Paul had been gored to death. The woman was flown to the Alfred hospital in
critical condition and, according to updates on her case, she required over a dozen surgeries
on a long road to recovery. In the aftermath of the attack, wildlife authorities warned that male
deer, even though they may seem docile the rest of the year, become aggressive come mating season.
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