A woman in Thailand has escaped a harrowing ordeal after she was trapped in the coils of a four metres long python in her home in Samut Prakan, a province south of Bangkok.
Arom Arunroj, 64, was bitten multiple times by the snake and strangled by the 20kg animal, which trapped her for two hours before rescuers arrived to free her.
The woman said she was washing her dishes at roughly 8.30pm when she felt a bite on her leg.
“I looked at it, and it was a snake,” she told Thai media. She tried to fight off the snake, hoping it would release her from its grips, but “it didn’t, instead it continued to squeeze me, wrapping its body around me.”
“I have never encountered an event like this in my life,” she said.
At 10pm, a neighbour heard her cries for help and called for assistance. When Sgt Maj Anusorn Wongmali Anusorn of the police arrived at the residency, he kicked down the door and heard a weak voice.
“She had probably been strangled for a while, because her skin was pale,” he said. “It was a python, a big one. I saw a bite mark on her leg but [knew] there might be some elsewhere too.”
Sgt Anusorn said he prodded the snake in an attempt to get it to release the woman. Disturbing footage filmed by first responders showed Arom perched on the floor, her body bound tightly by the snake.
She was eventually freed of the snake with assistance from members of the rescue organisation She Poh Tek Tung Foundation and taken to hospital for treatment.
Pythons are not venomous, though their bites can lead to infections. They kill their prey by binding themselves around it and suffocating it.
In Thailand last year, approximately 12,000 people were treated for venomous snake and animal bites, according to data from the country’s National Health Security Office.
In August, a man in Thailand was bitten on his testicles by a python hiding in the toilet bowl. The snake attached itself to the man’s scrotum before it was shaken off and beaten to death with a cleaning brush.
The man posted his experience on Facebook as a cautionary tale to others during the rainy season, which sees higher numbers of snakes and other reptiles seeking refuge from floods.