Durban - Moments before snake catcher, Jason Arnold rescued female Black Mamba that had been spotted swimming on a Durban beach, he handed his phone over to a beach-goer who captured the entire rescue on video.
Surrounded by curious onlookers, Arnold who raced to the beach during peak time traffic after getting a call from a local fisherman, is seen approaching the exhausted snake and in quick movement using his snake stick captures the mamba by the neck.
“Yoh bro, check out his head,” a beach-goer is heard saying.
“Stop bro,” another says Arnold approaches the crowd.
It was all just a day in the life of a Durban snake catcher, for Arnold.
This after fisherman, fishing at the Glenashley Beach near Durban North spotted the mamba out at sea, swimming.
He called Arnold who raced to the scene and discovered that it was a female Black Mamba measuring 2.3m.
This was the second Black Mamba to wash up on a Durban beach in recent months.
Arnold said that by the time he arrived at the beach, the mamba had “literally just been washed up on the shore again”.
This had made his job of catching the snake quite easy as it was exhausted from all the swimming it had done.
“I remained on the beach with it and a brave young lady happily assisted me in holding the body up in the air, whilst I gently held the head facing down, allowing gravity to drain the much swallowed and inhaled water to drain out of it.
“Every time the snake exhaled, I could literally feel the vibrating of the gurgling water in its lung. And with every breath, a bit of water would drain out of the snakes mouth. Once I had drained all of the water that wanted to come out, I safely bagged the snake in a large duvet cover,” he said.
Arnold said the mamba was taken to his home and kept under observation until it can be given a clear bill of heath.
Thereafter, he planned to release it into a suitable habitat away from humans.
“I'm assuming that the snake got washed down a storm water pipe that led out directly onto that beach with the heavy downpour we had on Tuesday,” Arnold said.
IOL