Well, I don't have pictures but I will share my experience..........

I don't feed live anymore because I had two bad experiences. Neither one had anything to do with leaving rats in with the snakes.

Incident No. 1 - I was feeding a 5' female woma a live medium rat using tongs. She struck the rat immediately but instead on constricting it, she pinned it against the side of the enclosure with a coil. This is fairly normal behavior for a woma. As I reached in to grab the rat and re-offer it to her in an effort to get her to constrict it the rat bit her hard - drawing blood and putting a good size divot in her.

Again, the rat was not dropped in there and the second I saw she was pinning it, I stepped in to remove it. It happened lightning fast.

Incident No. 2 - Feeding a small rat to a 3' yellow tailed cribo. Again, using tongs and offering head first. Cribo strikes but rat bites the inside of the snake's mouth as the snake is drawing it back into the enclosure. The cribo begins to slam the rat against the sides of the enclosure finally killing the rat but in the process, gets three bad bites to the tissue inside his mouth.

Point is, these things happen. I have no doubt that some people have done this thousands of times without incident. I've been keeping snakes for 22 years and have not only experienced it but have seen other knowledgeable and responsible owners have the occassional issue.

Another point here - many people here keep snakes other than ball pythons. Aspidites and Drymarchon species are perfect examples of snakes that may be more prone to injuries from rodents because they don't necessarily constrict their prey.

If people feed live and prefer it - well, it obviously works for them and that's fine and dandy. However, to answer the OP's questions - it's not an old wives tale. Serious injuries can and do happen to snakes during live feedings even when their keepers do everything by the book.