Son saved from killer python

A FAR North Queensland mum found her son in the grip of a 4.2m python in a horrific ordeal that ended only when the boy’s grandfather stabbed the snake to death.

Experts believe if Amanda Rutland, had not act intervened, the scrub python would have eaten her 22-month-old son, Naish.

Mother-of-two Ms Rutland believes the scrub python that grabbed son Naish last Saturday afternoon on the verandah of their Julatten home had been stalking the infant for several weeks.

Naish had been playing on the verandah about 2pm with his threeyear-old sister, Evie-Blue. When Ms Rutland stuck her head around the corner to check on the pair, she noticed a strange look on her daughter’s face.

“(My daughter) started backing up and looking at me really weird,” she said. “I raced around the corner, and there it was: the snake was wrapped around his arm, and getting closer to him.”

The python had three coils of its large body wrapped around the infant, and had bitten his right arm.

Ms Rutland said she tried to grab the snake away from her son, but could not shift its massive body, which was started to constrict.

“I screamed out for my father, and he came running out,” she said. “He was screaming for a knife. My father had to stab (the python) down the spine. It started to let go, I grabbed my son, and it started to wrap around my father.”