Paul Rosolie

For refusing to get swallowed by an anaconda

Paul Rosolie, a naturalist, had wanted to draw the world’s attention to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and announced that towards this end, he would allow an anaconda to swallow him on a two-hour live television show.

According to a New York Post article, 4.1 million viewers tuned in to Discovery channel, expecting to watch a snake eat a man. It did indeed begin promisingly, with the anaconda winding itself around Rosolie to suffocate him before ingesting him. The snake even managed to get Rosolie’s head into its mouth before Rosolie decided that he didn’t want to test his fate and called the stunt off.

Before that, he and his team had spent 60 days trying to locate a suitable snake to provoke into trying to eat him. He was protected too; according to The Telegraph, ‘To avoid suffocating, experts crafted Rosolie a specially designed carbon fiber suit, equipped with a breathing system—as well as with cameras and a system to communicate.’ But since there was no precedent of this kind of stunt, it was always going to be an experiment, one that could have turned fatal. It may have been a pragmatic decision for Rosolie, but for the millions who expected to watch a snake eat a man, it was an anti-climax.

Amazon rainforestanacondaPaul RosolieTV show