Mom Arms Herself With Salad Tongs to Free Her Cat From Venomous Snake
A cat owner from Brisbane, Australia summoned her mama bear instincts to save her cat from a Eastern Brown Snake that was coiled around the animal's neck. Using some quick thinking, Rebecca Daynes grabbed some kitchen tongs and managed to free her cat Mabel. But the incident clearly left the cat mama badly shaken.
Daynes shared her story in a post on Facebook on January 31.
According to news.com.au, Daynes said that Mabel is older, frail, and has a brain tumor. So she spends most of her time inside.
Newsweek reports Mabel managed to sneak outside while Daynes had taken her daughter to school.
"She's very old and slow these days, so on the rare occasion she manages to get outside she typically just finds a spot in the sun to sleep, so I wasn't particularly worried," Daynes said.
"Around lunchtime I saw her walk past a window and instantly noticed the snake around her neck," she added. "I was obviously shocked and ran to remove the snake, thinking it was most likely a small python. Pythons can deliver a nasty bite but they aren't venomous, however as soon as I got closer I could tell that it wasn't."
And it wasn't a python either — it was an Eastern Brown Snake, one of the most deadly snakes in Australia.
"In an adrenaline filled haze I managed to unravel it myself with a pair of kitchen tongs," she wrote in a post on Facebook.
Thankfully, Mabel was okay after the incident — in fact she was pretty much unfazed.
"It has been 24 hours and so far Mabel hasn’t shown any symptoms or signs of distress," Daynes wrote online. "She also tried to escape outside again this morning so she clearly hasn’t learnt any lessons either."
The cat mom managed to snap a photo of the snake, which she said she took so that it could be identified if an antivenom was needed. After Daynes freed Mabel, it's unclear if the snake is alive or dead.
How Dangerous are Eastern Brown Snakes?
When we say this was a close call, we're not exaggerating. You definitely don't want an Eastern Brown Snake to be your first pet snake. Eastern Brown Snakes have venom that is rated the second most toxic of all snakes all over the world. Their venom has a mixture of different poisons; but the most dangerous toxin is neurotoxin, which paralyzes the nerves of the heart, lungs and diaphragm and effectively suffocates the victim. Most of the lethal snake bites in Australia have come from Eastern Brown Snakes.
Thankfully for Mabel, she managed to make it out alive. Something that made her mama very, very happy. "Between this and her brain tumor I’m starting to think she’s immortal," Daynes joked online.
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