22 foot python snake swallows Indonesian grandmother whole after woman went to collect rubber. Missing woman was discovered after villagers noted gorged python.
A missing grandmother in Indonesia was discovered in the body of a 22ft long python, with video capturing the moment her remains were found inside the cut-open beast.
The victim, going by the name of Jahrah, 54, according to local media had failed to return from collecting rubber from a plantation in Jambi province on Sunday.
Her husband searched the area, only to find his wife’s sandals, jacket, headscarf and knife, Betara Jambi Police Chief AKP Herafa told the outlet.
He returned to the same area with a search party the next day — stumbling across the giant snake with a swollen mid-section where it had eaten something large, police confirmed.
‘At that time, people saw and found a large python. From there, we suspected that the snake had eaten Zahra’s mother,’ Anto, the head of the local Terjun Gajah village told Indonesia’s Okezone News.
Agonizing death
Video showed (see above) a volunteer carefully using a branch to pin the python’s head down as others started bashing it above the swollen area.
From there villagers proceeded to carefully slicing the snake open — revealing what officials say was the swallowed body of the missing woman.
‘Everyone was astonished,’ Anto said.
‘It turned out that the woman we were looking for was in the snake’s stomach.’
The grandmother likely died in an agonising ordeal that may have taken two hours to complete, Anto added.
The snake would have first used its fangs – which are angled backwards to provide more grip – to pin Jarah in place.
It would then have wrapped around her as quickly as possible using its powerful body and slowly constricted her until she was unable to breath.
Villagers remain on edge after sightings of even large pythons
After she had suffocated, it would have dislocated its jaw and swallowed her whole CNN Indonesia reported citing local officials.
Fully digesting a meal that size may have taken the snake weeks, and Jarah’s body appeared largely intact – including her clothes – after the snake was cut open, officials stated.
The 22 foot snake was not a record for the village — where a 27-foot-long python was previously spotted, Anto said.
That one got away, the official said, leaving locals ‘worried that bigger snakes are still in the forest.’
Indonesia has a large population of giant reticulated pythons, like the one that ate Jahrah. They live in remote forests and feed on wild animals, occasionally humans.
In March 2017, Akbar Salubiro was cut from the stomach of a python after being eaten alive on the island of West Sulawesi.
