00:11 ALBERT: These animals can kill you in the
blink of an eye.
It’s one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
00:17 COMM: Albert Killian has a deadly passion.
He lives with more than 60 venomous snakes including a 25lbs King cobra.
00:26 ALBERT: Okay.
That’s quite a bit of venom, buddy.
That’s enough to kill half of Homestead.
00:31 COMM: He earns a living extracting venom for
the pharmaceutical industry.
He has been bitten so many times, he has developed if not an immunity, then certainly a tolerance
to the effects.
00:41 ALBERT: I’ve taken 5 mamba bites and I’ve
never needed antivenin.
The reality of that kind of boggles my mind.
00:51 COMM: 60 year old Albert keeps his large collection
of snakes at home.
00:55 ALBERT: There’s 28 Egyptian Cobras, there’s
3 Indian Cobras, there’s Forest Cobras, Spitting Cobras, Monocled Cobras, and those
are just the cobras.
So basically, there are probably about 37 cobras here.
Then I have The Rattlesnakes, The Pit Vipers and The Vipers.
I consider me, personally, to be one of the best in the world when it comes to handling
snakes.
I have an understanding of these animals that a lot of people will never have.
01:24 KRISTINE BIALECKI: His collection of snakes
is incredible.
Probably the best collection that I have ever seen as to where he takes immaculate care
of them, every single one of them is beautiful and he has a really great variety.
01:41 COMM: Originally from Connecticut, USA, Albert
has been fascinated by snakes since he was just 10 years old.
01:48 ALBERT: One day I was going to school, and
I saw a snake on the side of the road, and I was very interested in it, and I ran home;
when I told my uncle, he ran up the road and he had a gun with him and he shot the snake,
and I was just upset.
And I went into shock.
I couldn’t believe what I had just seen, and I felt like these animals really got a
bad deal, and I felt since then I have to save all the snakes in the neighbourhood.
So what I did is I got a couple of containers, barrels, garbage cans and I started collecting
all the snakes and keeping them in the garage.
People would hire me to walk around and collect snakes and you know, so I was making some
pretty good money.
02:31 COMM: More recently, Albert has been extracting
venom from snakes he receives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
02:39 ALBERT: I’ve only been doing venom extractions
for about 3 years now.
This venom is processed then to make pharmaceutical products that they put out in the local drug
stores.
02:51 ALBERT: This is a neurotoxic venom, okay?
This venom attacks the central nervous system causing paralysis, respiratory, cardiac arrest.
I’ve been bitten not by this particular one but ones larger than this.
I got bit in the arm.
My arm even has a mark with a fang on it.There was enough venom to probably drop an 8000lbs
elephant.
03:12 COMM: Handling these reptiles can be unpredictable,
and Albert has been bitten by venomous snakes more than a 100 times.
03:20 ALBERT: Over the years of me being bitten
by the snakes, my blood does have a tolerance to it but it’s not an immune system.
It’s just a tolerant immune system that can take higher levels of venom that normally
can kill other people.
03:34 COMM: The one encounter from Suphan Cobra
he received from Southeast Asia had him close to death.
03:41 ALBERT: The thing nailed me, and I had only
like 20 minutes to get to the hospital.
There was no ambulance that could take me, so I wound up driving myself.
When I got to the hospital, no antivenin was available.
What happened after that was—the venom overwhelmed my system, put me into respiratory failure
and…but also put me into cardiac arrest.
I flat-lined for like 2 or 3 minutes.
During that period of time when I realised…because the consciousness is at a different level,
but basically, I kind of felt euphoric; I basically floated out of my body.
04:22 COMM: But despite his near-death experience,
Albert won’t be giving up his 50 year obsession with the reptiles.
04:28 KRISTINE BIALECKI: Everyone does worry for
him, but he knows what he is doing.
He has been doing it for so long, and he wouldn’t be happy if he wasn’t doing this.
04:37 ALBERT: I continue to handle snakes because
they are a big part of my life and I actually love them.
I’ll just continue to love and appreciate these animals more than anything.