Steve Ludwin, famous for his music and obsession with venomous reptiles. For the last 30 years, he had been collecting venom and injecting himself with it. From vipers to cobras, the snake’s venoms have pushed his body to the limit. He has even been overdosed on toxic substances and hospitalized soon after.
In a video posted by Natural History Museum on Youtube, Steve explained how and why he started to play such dangerous games with his life:
Now 54-years-old, Steve Ludwin is a semi-retired punk musician who looks younger than his real age. He has been injecting himself with deadly snake venom for nearly 30 years.
“While other people are out there wasting their money in gyms lifting weights, I’m at home injecting snake venom and exercising my immune system,” Ludwin told Business Insider.
Ludwin says that after injecting himself with the reptilian saliva, he feels a huge energy boost for six to eight hours. He also believes that the regular injections could slow down the aging process in his body but he does not recommend it to others as it can cause death.
He shared that his first injection wasn’t really an injection as he used more of a shamanic ancient technique by making a small scratch on his arms before dropping the venom on the scratch. He was very nervous but somehow confident that it was going to work out. One of the main reasons was that he wanted to see if it is possible to be immune to snake venom.
As time passes, Steve Ludwin would inject the syringe’s needle containing venom directly into his body but that was before he overdosed. He had been experimenting with mixing three different snake venoms in one syringe. He planned to inject just a drop but as he pressed down too hard, the entire syringe of venom emptied into his left arm. He only went to the hospital after a night of no sleep and was immediately sent to intensive care.
The doctor there had never handle a case of snakebite and an expert said that he would likely die from it but Ludwin refused any kind of surgery, saying his body can take it. Three days later, he discharged himself from the hospital and his arm returned to normal a week later. It might be a miracle or perhaps because of his years of self-immunization.
Until now, Steve Ludwin is still injecting himself with snake venom. He lives at Kennington flat with his girlfriend Suzy, Russian blue cat Pushkin, a rare iguana, and about 18 snakes.