http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5624844/ ... An article about Alice Cooper's albino python ( probably burm ). There are some things in that article that stick out to me ...

"Just hours before its owner, rocker Alice Cooper, was to take the stage at a theater in Wallingford last weekend, the 8-foot-long snake ate a live rat ... "
Ok ... so he was going to take the stage with a snake that had just eaten a LIVE rat none the less. Its important to let the snake digest before any handling at all.

"... and then swallowed a 12-by-14 inch heating pad, wires and all, that had been left in its cage by mistake."
Huh? The heating pad was inside the cage? Wires and all ... was it plugged in? This is a good example of the dangers of ... 1) Why you should be careful feeding on substrate that could potentially be ingested, and 2) The heating pad is supposed to go on the outside of the tank .

I'm glad there was a good reptile vet/surgeon available to remove the heating pad. I would only guess that ingesting something like that would probably be fatal to the snake.