(Not) Eaten Alive

Some of an estimated 4 million Discovery Channel viewers are complaining that naturalist Paul Rosolie did not become snake food as promised, but his battle with a six-meter anaconda coiled around him was frightening enough for most.

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Naturalist Paul Rosolie is helpless as a six-meter anaconda tries to suffocate him. /Discovery Channel

(Not) Eaten Alive

Paul Rosolie speaks during an interview at the the Discovery Channel offices in New York on December 3, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Timothy A CLARY

Naturalist Paul Rosolie promised television viewers of the Discovery Channel he would be eaten alive by an anaconda in his efforts to bring attention to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

That didn't happen, but the six-meter-long female snake certainly got a taste of him.

Actually, Rosolie never promised to die and he was fitted with a helmet and a specially-designed carbon fiber suit, equipped with a breathing system to prevent him from being suffocated.

Here's how AFP describes what happened after they found the snake in the Amazon rainforest:

"When I went up to the snake, it didn't try to eat me right away," Rosolie recounted.

"It tried to escape. And when I provoked it a little bit, and acted a little more like a predator, that's when it turned around and defended itself."

In the end, Rosolie wasn't swallowed whole by the giant serpent, but instead wrestled with the beast as she coiled around him before he aborted the mission.

As the snake wrapped around a suited-up Rosolie – at one point opening its wide jaws on his helmet – the daredevil said she was squeezing his arm tight, which he feared might break.

"I felt her jaw on my helmet and I could hear a gurgling and wheezing," he said, after surviving the standoff with the snake.

His team looked on worried as his breathing strained and his heart rate slowed.

He told them he was feeling light-headed and as the anaconda squeezed tight around him, he called for help.

"Guys you need to get in here... I'm calling it I need help!" he said from inside the suit, prompting the support crew to rescue an exhausted Rosolie from the anaconda's powerful grip.

"Her crush force was fully on my exposed arm so I just started to feel the blood drain out of my hand and I felt the bone start to flex and when that got to a point when I felt like it was about to snap, I had to tap out," he said.

As you might expect, bloodthirsty viewers voiced their displeasure in the social media, but Rolsolie was unapologetic.

"Everybody on Earth knows that the rainforests are disappearing and most people can tell you how important they are, but still, not enough people are paying attention, not enough people realise this is such a problem," he said.

"Eaten alive" has been aired in the United States. It will air on December 10 in Finland, Denmark, Hungary, Poland and Sweden, and two days later in Australia, before being broadcast in other countries, including China and India.

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