Mangaluru (The Hindu): Twelve-year-old Vishak had seen pythons up close a couple of times in the neighbourhood. But his experience on Tuesday of nearly becoming prey to one, but for his presence of mind, is something he will not forget in a lifetime.

The student of class 6, undergoing treatment at the Father Muller Hospital for injury on his left hand and left leg, was attacked while he was walking to his grandparents’ house that is 500 metres from his house in Sajipa village of Bantwal around 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

“As I was crossing a thick roadside shrub, I felt something was pulling my hair from inside the thick shrub,” he recalled. Vishak narrates that the python tried to grab him by the head and then came down and bit him around his left knee and then reached for his left hand. “As it left my hand, I picked up a stone with my right hand and hit it thrice and managed to get my hand freed,” he says. The python then let him go and fell into a ditch. Vishak walked to his relative’s house close by, who brought him to the hospital.

Paediatrician Shreedhar Avabrata said the bites are non-venomous and he is being given antibiotics. “His presence of mind has saved him,” said the doctor. After getting treatment at two private hospitals, Vishak was brought to Father Muller Hosptial that specialises in treating snake bite victims. “On an average, we get around 50 cases of snake bite a week,” says Richard Coelho, Director of Father Muller Medical College Hospital.

D. Rajkumar from Mysuru, who has been studying snakes, says it was not unusual to see a python catch a human. It usually catches warm-blooded living creatures. “But it seems to have let him go because he resisted,” he said.