Bangkok– A 64-year-old woman was getting ready to wash the evening dishes at her home on the outskirts of Bangkok when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to find a huge snake gripping her.
“I was about to draw some water and when I sat down, I was immediately bitten. When I looked, I saw the snake coiled around me,” Arum Arunrog told Thai newspaper Tairath.
The four to five-metre-long snake coiled around her torso, pinning her to the kitchen floor.
“I grabbed him by the head, but he wouldn’t let go,” she said. “It just stressed me out.”
Pythons are nonvenomous constrictor snakes that kill their prey by gradually squeezing them to release their breath.
She leaned against her kitchen door and began screaming for help, but authorities were not called until about an hour and a half after the incident, when a neighbor heard her screams.
Police officer Anusorn Wongmali told The Associated Press on Thursday that when he arrived, the woman was still leaning against her door, looking exhausted and pale, with the snake wrapped around her.
Police and animal control officers used a metal bar to hit the snake on the head until it let go and ran away before anyone could catch it.
In total, Arum spent about two hours in the snake’s clutches Tuesday night before being freed.
The woman was treated for several bites but appeared unharmed in videos of her speaking to Thai media shortly after the incident.
Encounters with snakes are not uncommon in Thailand Last year, 26 people died from poisonous snake bites, according to government statistics. By 2023, a total of 12,000 people will be treated for bites from poisonous snakes and other animals.
The reticulated python is the largest of the snakes found in Thailand and generally ranges in size from 1.5 m to 6.5 m (5 to 21 ft) and weighs up to about 75 kg (165 lb). The python was found to be 10 metres (33 ft) long and weighed 130 kilograms (287 lb).
Small snakes feed on small mammals such as mice, but larger snakes feed on prey such as pigs, deer, and even domestic dogs and cats. Attacks on humans are not common, although they do occur occasionally.