Man bites snake in hour-long battle to survive

Mr Kina and the police officer pulled the snake down but could not make it as it coiled itself round a branch, meanwhile releasing its victim as it became exhausted.
“Finally we both came down, landing with a thud. The other officer came running and helped his colleague put the python in three sacks, hurled it onto a pick up and drove it to Falconry of Kenya, a birds and snake sanctuary in Malindi, 20 kilometres away.

But the snake was nowhere to be seen the following day. And Mr Nyaumbe still cannot tell how this happened.

“How does a snake escape from a closed room? Did they see the hole they claim the snake made on the sacks? How did it remove the rope from around its neck and my shirt which I had wrapped round its head?” Mr Nyaumbe asks.

No answers are forthcoming, however. Malindi police chief Peter Kattam, who spent two days with two pick-up trucks full of police officers hunting the run-away snake with no success, said: “I’m shocked. I don’t know what happened”.

There are several private snake firms in Malindi which buy pythons and other snake species at fortunes.

“What happened to the python which attacked me?” That is the question Nyaumbe is asking.