Indonesian authorities searched far and wide for a missing 54-year-old woman before finding her inside a python.
The rescue team were searching for the woman around her place of work when they stumbled across a seven-metre-long python that appeared unusually bloated.
The team instantly feared the snake may have swallowed the woman whole. They killed the snake and cut it open – and found the woman they were looking for.
The woman, who has been identified as Jahrah, went to work at a rubber plantation on Sunday night but did not return home.
The next day she was reported missing, the BBC reported.
“The victim was found in the snake’s stomach,” local police chief AKP S Harefa told local outlets.
“The victim’s body was not destroyed when we found her inside the snake, meaning that she had only been recently swallowed whole.”
While it is not common for pythons to swallow humans whole, there have been similar reports in the past.
In 2017 a video emerged of a man, also from Indonesia, trapped inside the body of a seven-metre-long python.
Staying in Indonesia, the very next year in 2018 a woman was also said to have been swallowed whole by a python while she was tending to her crops.
Pythons are known to swallow their food whole, which allows their mouths to open wide enough to take in a variety of different objects.
“They are constrictors, so what they do is coil their body around you. They will give you a hug of death. You breathe in and your body gets smaller, it tightens its grip, and you can’t breathe out,” Nathan Rusli, director of the Indonesia Herpetofauna Foundation, told The Washington Post.
“The top and bottom jaw of a snake is connected by ligaments, it’s quite flexible. They can swallow prey larger than the size of their head.”
Compiled by Dylan Bettencourt
Pictured above: Python snake
Image source: @TheWashingtonPost
