AN ADVENTURE CUT SHORT
A motorcycle wreck involving a rattlesnake killed an outdoorsman who seemed larger than life Sunday
Sandor Szalmas was a dirt-under-the-fingernails, sleep-in-the-woods kind of guy who loved snakes, wild boars, alligators and all things creepy-crawly.

Whenever he and his friend Lisa Freeman would watch "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin on television, she'd say: "That's you, Sandor. You know you're watching yourself there." That's how the 45-year-old Hungarian national, who lived in New Orleans since 1981, was seen by those who knew him best.

On Tuesday, he died of injuries suffered in a Dec. 5 motorcycle accident in eastern New Orleans.


Police think Szalmas failed to negotiate a curve on Almonaster Avenue and struck a curb because he was distracted by a rattlesnake he was transporting on the back of the motorcycle. He never regained consciousness and died at University Hospital.

Long before his unusual death, Szalmas was considered by those who knew him to be a larger-than-life character.

Carl Mack said his friend was "the kind of guy who would be talking with you and catching a fly out of the air at the same time or playing with geckos or eating termites he plucked off a board as he worked on a house."

Szalmas was a handyman nonpareil for a group of French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny homeowners, a jack-of-all-trades craftsman who could overcome any problem involving construction, renovation or moving furniture.

He also was a solicitous parent to his 9-year-old New Orleans stepgrandson Denny, taking him virtually everywhere, not only to job sites but to Hungary during summers.

"He was a special guy, an unforgettable, delightful character who loved life," said Jocelyn Connelly. "My husband and I feel very, very sad and we'll miss him very much."

Connelly and her husband were among the homeowners who employed Szalmas as a handyman since he moved to New Orleans from his native Hungary after falling under the city's spell during a Mardi Gras visit.