Woman Freed After Being Strangled by Python for 2 Hours: 'I Saw the Snake Wrapping Around Me'

A woman was rescued after being strangled by a python for more than two hours in Samut Prakan, Thailand, per CNN, The Guardian and Associated Press.

In the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 17, Arom Arunroj, 64, felt several bites on her leg when she was doing dishes at her home, which is located roughly 21 miles south of Bangkok. “The snake just shot forward and bit me,” she said, per CNN.

“I was about to scoop some water and when I sat down it bit me immediately,” Arunroj told Thailand’s Thairath newspaper, per the AP. “When I looked I saw the snake wrapping around me.”

“I grabbed it by the head, but it wouldn’t release me,” she said. “It only tightened.”

The python emerged and wrapped itself around Arunroj until she fell to the ground. She was unable to free herself from the snake’s tightening grip around her waist. She remained trapped in the animal’s grasp for two hours on the floor of a tiny dark room.

Arunroj shouted for help but wasn’t immediately met with assistance. Eventually one of her neighbors heard her and called authorities for help, per The Guardian. 

Upon arrival, police and animal control kicked down her door, prodded and hit the snake with a crowbar to move it away from Arunroj and release her from its grip. She was freed within 30 minutes of their arrival, and authorities then sent her to the hospital to be treated for several bites.

“We were shocked to see the lady was tied down on the floor with the python wrapping around [her],” Police Major Sergeant Anusorn Wongmalee of the Phra Samut Chedi Police Station in Samut Prakan said, per CNN. “The snake was really big.”

“She had probably been strangled for a while, because her skin was pale,” Wongmalee said, per The Guardian, adding, “It was a python, a big one. I saw a bite mark on her leg but [knew] there might be some elsewhere too.”

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Per reports, the python was 13 feet long and weighed more than 45 lbs. Authorities confirmed the snake escaped after the attack.

While pythons are not venomous, they can kill people by suffocation. The snake species will coil itself around their prey to constrict blood flow, and then swallow their victims whole.

According to Thai National Parks, there are 250 snake species in Thailand, three of which are types of pythons: the Reticulated, Burmese and Blood.

Given the large number of snakes in the country, 12,000 people were treated for venomous snake and animal bites in the country in 2023, and 26 of those people, according to Thailand’s National Health Security office, per CNN.