ESPN  

PATTAYA, Thailand — A Thai snake charmer kissed 19 highly poisonous king cobras in an attempt to set a world record.

One by one, the cobras were released Saturday onto a stage set up in this Thai beach resort town, as the snake charmer, Khum Chaibuddee, kissed each one and then moved onto the next.

Security was tight, with four additional snake charmers flanking the stage at each corner and a medical team waiting on the sidelines with serum in case one of the snakes snapped, according to a statement from Thailand's Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Pattaya, which organized the event.

The museum's manager, Somporn Naksuetrong, said Ripley's planned to submit the attempt to the Guinness Book of World Records to overtake a previous record set in 1999 when an American kissed 11 venomous snakes.

Khum, a part-time snake charmer for more than 12 years, urged children and onlookers not to try the feat.

"I, myself, have been bitten several times by snakes," he said in a statement. "Always bear in mind the old story about the snake charmer who died (from being) bitten by snakes."

Blaze kills snakes and a means to pay off debt

Meanwhile, a weekend blaze in Hempfield, Pa., injured an elderly homeowner — and killed more than 100 snakes the man's son was keeping in hopes of selling them to pay off his student loans.

Brandon Repovz was keeping more than 100 snakes in the home where he lived with his father, Robert, and Brandon's girlfriend. Stored on racks of plastic containers in the basement, where the fire evidently started, were his collection of ball pythons. None of the 3-foot, nonvenomous reptiles survived.

"What I lost there was about $30,000 in snakes. I had about $25,000 in student loans left to pay off, and now there's no easy way to do that," said Repovz, an Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate whose full-time job is with a data-tracking firm.

He said that after the fire began, his father, Robert Repovz, 79, was helped from the home by a neighbor, and treated at a nearby hospital for smoke inhalation, second-degree burns on his hands and first-degree burns to his face.

Volunteer Fire Chief Donald Thoma said neighbors told firefighters arriving on the scene that the homeowners kept "exotic animals" in the basement.

"A few minutes later, they came over to tell us they were mostly, if not all, snakes," Thoma said.

The basement was so dark that the snakes were hard to see, but it was apparent to firefighters that most or all had died, the chief said. The fire appeared to be electrical in nature and might have been related to special heating tape and pads used for the snakes, he said. The home was severely damaged.

Brandon Repovz said he kept no venomous snakes, and the size of the ball pythons kept the constrictors from being a threat to humans.

He has spent the past several years buying them as babies and raising them, to sell via the Internet. At one time, he had 200 of them, but had been gradually reducing the number as he found buyers.

"I'm just crushed," he said, noting neither the house nor the snakes were insured.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press