If you look at the picture you'll see it was making at tight turn. Unless that happened due to much writhing (wouldn't amaze me), it's probably the case that the aligators serrated scaling combined with pokey tail and dead-rigidness meant that it broke out of the snake during the turn, snake writhes a hell of a lot and makes it worse, snake dies.
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Vita brevis,
Occasio praeceps |