In the Florida semi-wilds outside of the Everglades runs the Wildman, Dusty Crum, the star of Discovery’s Guardians of the Glades now in its second season.
Our hot off the presses exclusive preview clip for Tuesday’s episode will have your hair standing on end if you hate snakes. To paraphrase the Swamp Hippie, aka the Wildman: “Son, you got me…twice!”
Bitten, that is.
The clip shows Dusty, Clark, Brittany, and Jay in the wild chase and on the tail, literally, of a wild python who is so wily he loses the human hunters and slithers off…until Dusty scans the brush and sees the snake making his getaway.
Not so fast, as the Wildman corners the snake and then tries to grab him. And twice the snake bites him, once on the hand and once on the leg in the clip.
Clark and Dusty are trying to pinpoint where the snake went, as Clark sees a different vantage point, and Brittany — who is fully dressed to avoid all kinds of contact with snakes and insects — is climbing the trees also trying to find the missing snake.
The men think the snake is headed to the water, but that is not the case. Dusty scans and sees the snake has moved towards the brush. Dusty says: “I see it.”
Clark notes the snake has left the shore as Brittany is scrambling to make out where the snake’s location is. Brittany says: “Where?,” as Dusty and Clark see the snake as it enters the brush area and an opening, which is where Dusty makes his moves to capture him by grabbing his head.
Is this the first time Dusty got bitten?
Nope. Dusty has cornered and had close calls, and he is no stranger to the occasional bite from a wild python.
In our exclusive interview ahead of the season, Dusty shared his hunting strategies and how he thinks about the notion he may be getting ahead of the snake problem:
“I wouldn’t really say that. I know I did see a raccoon for the first time in five years, not long ago. And I seen some fox squirrels. I used to see fox squirrels out here in this place. And then, it was so overrun with pythons, the fox squirrels just disappeared.
Then the other day I saw a couple of the squirrels, so I’m thinking maybe at least in these localized areas, we’re making a little bit of a difference. We’ve taken over 3000 snakes out and for the exponential factor with half of them being females and potentially laying a hundred eggs a year, you’re taking future generations of snakes out with every snake captured. So that’s a good thing.”
Dusty gets bitten twice in the course of the action.
You can tell at this point, especially after being bitten twice, that Dusty is over this snake. He says: “I hope you enjoyed your last meal…[snake then bites him another time] He got me son… he got me again!”
Now, just in case you were curious about what to do when a python bites you, or any reticulated snake bite, the NIH has a handy medical reference article for you to read here.
Guardians of the Glades exclusive preview:
Tune in Tuesday night to see all the action on Guardians of the Glades and make sure the team lead by Dusty Crum does not sustain any more injuries.
Guardians of the Glades airs Tuesday at 10/9c on Discovery.