Thai woman rescued after two hours trapped in four-metre python’s coils

A Thai woman has described being trapped in the coils of a 20kg (44lb) python for about two hours in her home before rescuers were able to free her.

Arom Arunroj, 64, was bitten several times by the snake, which had entered her home in Samut Prakan, a province south of Bangkok. She said she had been doing the washing-up at about 8.30pm when she suddenly felt something biting her leg. “I looked at it, and it was a snake,” she said in an interview broadcast on Thai media.

Arom said she had tried to fight the snake and had cried out for help, but no one heard her.

At one point she grabbed the snake’s head in the hope that it would let her go, “but it didn’t, instead it kept strangling me”.

A neighbour eventually heard her calls for help and rang for assistance at 10pm, Thai media reported.

Sgt Maj Anusorn Wongmali Anusorn of the police said he had kicked down Arom’s door after hearing a weak voice coming from inside. “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,” he said, adding that he tried to help by prodding the snake to get it to move away.

The python was four metres (13ft) long and weighed more than 20kg. In footage filmed by first responders, Arom can be seen sitting on the floor with the snake coiled around her waist.

The police were joined by members of the She Poh Tek Tung foundation, a rescue organisation, and Arom was taken to hospital for treatment. Pythons are not venomous, but their bites can cause infections. They kill their prey by wrapping themselves around it and suffocating it.

About 12,000 people were treated for venomous snake and animal bites in Thailand in 2023, according to the country’s national health security office. According to government figures, 26 people died from snake bites last year.

A python bit a man on the testicle in the same province last month as he sat on the toilet on the second floor of his house. He grabbed the snake to prevent it escaping into his home and tried to pull it out of the toilet, hitting its head with his hand and a toilet brush, until a neighbour responded to his calls for help.

He was prescribed antibiotics and experienced pain in the area, he told the Thai media outlet Khaosod English, adding that he was traumatised by the attack.