Woman shares bed with black mamba for three nights
‘FEARLESS’ Fred Lubbe, renowned for rescuing families from serpent intruders, found himself in Macekane village just outside Empangeni late on Tuesday afternoon, searching for a snake that was described as 'quite long and brown'.
The journey to the rural residence ended up being the most difficult part of the whole catch as it included a one kilometre uphill walk.
‘Unfortunately, that is not where my work stopped, as I once again had to deal with a cluttered room in order to find the snake that was reported,’ said Fred.
When questioned, the homeowner claimed to have first spotted the snake on Saturday - which means that she had, shockingly, slept for multiple nights in exceptionally close proximity to a highly-venomous black mamba.
‘Once I spoke to the homeowners about where the snake might be located, I went about clearing the perimeter of the bedroom in which the snake was reported to have last been seen.
'Once the perimeter of the room was clear, the last place that the snake could be was under the bed, as there was also clutter there,’ he said.
‘The homeowners and I began moving the clutter out from under the bed, but we still couldn’t find anything.
'Finally, we started to remove the bedding and tip the mattress up. We ended up finding a 1.5m black mamba between the base of the bed and the wall.’
The rest of the catch went off without a hitch as Fred got his tongs around the snake’s neck and was able to place it inside his capture bag.
‘This, once again, goes to show that snakes do not want to harm people as this snake was only slightly annoyed with me and only because I removed him from where he had been sleeping.’
The snake was safely released on Thursday morning, away from human activity.