A cobra died after being bitten by an eight-year-old boy in a bid to save himself after the reptile wrapped itself around his hand, according to local media reports. The boy, known only by his first name Deepak, was attacked by the cobra while he was playing in his backyard on Monday in Jashpur district of India's central Chhattisgarh state.
The boy did not panic although the cobra bit him. Instead, Deepak challenged the cobra and in return bit it. The snake died within a few minutes. Deepak was later taken to the hospital, where he was treated for a snake bite and was discharged after a few hours.
More Venomous Than a Cobra
The cobra attacked when Deepak was playing in the backyard of his house. He didn't notice that a cobra was nearby. The snake crawled close to Deepak and caught hold of him and wrapped its body around his arm before rearing back and biting down to inject its lethal poison.
Deepak shook his arm violently while fighting through the pain, but he was unable to get the reptile to move. At that time, Deepak made the decision to give the aggressor a taste of its own medicine and aggressively bit into the reptile's body, killing it almost instantly.
"The snake got wrapped around my hand and bit me. I was in great pain," Deepak told The New Indian Express.
"As the reptile didn't budge when I tried to shake it off, I bit it hard twice. It all happened in a flash," he said.
The boy was later administered anti-snake venom doses and discharged from the hospital after a day-long treatment.
Deadly Attack
After the bite, Deepak's parents panicked for his life and rushed him to the nearest hospital, where he was kept under monitoring to make sure he would make a full recovery. Doctors who examined his wound found that it was a "dry bite," which means the cobra did not spit venom.
According to a snake specialist who spoke to The New Indian Express, "Deepak didn't show any symptoms and healed quickly due to the dry bite," which occurs when a venomous snake bites without releasing any venom.
There are 300 kinds of snakes in India, 60 of which are extremely dangerous. In India, 1.2 million people died from snake bites between 2000 and 2019, according to a 2020 research by the nonprofit scientific journal eLife.
According to another report released last week, more than 85 percent of all snakebite deaths reported in 2019 happened in India, where snakebites are quite common.
Adult snakes, which have complete control over the release of venom from their glands, frequently deliver dry bites. Snakes use their venom to kill their prey or to ward off hostile predators. When a snake wants to warn or scare an animal away rather than kill it, it frequently bites dry.
There are more than 200 different species of snakes that live in the Jashpur district, where Deepak had his battle with the cobra.
