Govinda Kumar: Toddler bites cobra’s head and kills it after it coiled around his hands
An incredibly brave two-year-old boy has saved himself by biting a venomous cobra and killing it after the deadly reptile began to coil itself around his hands.
Govinda Kumar was playing at his family home in Bettiah, India, last Thursday when the snake appeared.
The boy threw a brick at it and the snake retaliated, wrapping itself around the toddler’s hands.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The infant’s family said he did not scream, and instead bit down on the cobra’s head.
Mateshwari Devi, the boy’s grandmother, told the Times of India that when she and the family saw the snake everyone rushed towards Govinda, but “in the meantime, he already bit the snake, killing it on the spot”.
After sinking his teeth into the cobra, Govinda immediately fainted and was rushed to the nearby Government Medical College Hospital.
Govinda had ingested some of its venom, and it was enough to knock him unconscious, but thankfully not enough to be fatal.
Dr Saurabh Kumar told The Telegraph, that the boy had eaten part of the snake’s body, and the venom had caused his mouth and face to swell.
He has already been discharged from hospital after responding well to treatment.
Dr Kumar said the team was “surprised” that the child had not been bitten by the cobra, and that it was in fact the other way around.
“The child had eaten a part of the cobra and the venom had gone into his digestive tract, unlike in the cases where the cobra bites the person and venom goes into blood and triggers neurotoxicity,” he said.
“We gave him anti-allergy medicine and kept him under watch. As he didn’t develop any symptoms for 48 hours, we discharged the child on Saturday.”
The medical team said the cobra appeared to have died from the trauma inflicted from the bite.
Doctors at the GMCH hospital said five to six snake bite patients are brought in every month and that Govinda’s case is “highly unusual”.
India is home to over 300 species of snake, but the four that most commonly bite humans include the spectacled cobra, common krait, Russel’s viper and saw-scaled viper.
According to a study in the journal eLife, over a million people in India died from snakebite related incidents between 2000-2019.
