A 64-year-old woman in Thailand has been rescued by police after she was strangled by a giant python for two hours. CBS NewsThe incident happened on Tuesday. The woman, named only as Arom, was washing dishes at her home outside Bangkok when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to find a 13 to 16 foot python clutching her. “I was about to draw water when I sat down and it bit me right away. When I looked up, the snake had wrapped itself around me,” she said.
The giant python coiled itself around the 64-year-old woman’s torso and held her in the kitchen sink, the outlet reported. Police said the woman tried to free herself from the snake’s grip for two hours but was unsuccessful.
“I grabbed him by the head, but he was not willing to let me go,” she said. “He held on tighter and tighter.”
The woman called for help, but initially no one responded. Later, one of her neighbours heard her distressing cries and sought help from the police.
“We were shocked to see the woman tied to the floor with the python wrapped around her body,” said police Major Sergeant Anusorn Wongmali of the Phra Samut Chedi police station in Samut Prakan province, south of Bangkok. CNN“The snake was really big.”
Police and animal control officers stomped on the snake’s head until it broke free of their grip and fled before they could capture it. In all, Ms. Arome spent about two hours in the python’s clutches before she was freed. She was later given treatment for multiple bites, according to police.
The snake later ran away, but we could not catch it, police said.
Also Read | 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy stabbed to death in China
Remarkably, pythons are non-venomous constrictors that kill their prey by slowly choking them to death. According to Thai National Parks, there are 250 snake species found in Thailand, including three types of pythons – reticulated, Burmese and blood.
According to Thailand’s National Health Protection Office, nearly 12,000 people in the country were treated for bites from venomous snakes and animals last year. According to official statistics, 26 people died from snake bites during that period.
Deaths by large constrictors are considered rare, but several people in Indonesia have been killed by pythons in recent years. Last month, a woman in Siteba village in South Sulawesi province was found dead in the snake’s stomach after it swallowed her whole. In June a woman was found dead in the stomach of a reticulated python in another district in South Sulawesi.
