Teenager found four foot cobra in his bed after drunk night out

A drunk teenager quickly sobered up after he discovered a four-foot Cape cobra sleeping in his bed.

Allesandro Panzeri returned to his family farm in Stellenbosch, South Africa, after having some drinks with friends to celebrate finishing his exams.

When the 18-year-old lay down at 1am, he discovered a lump in his pillow which began hissing loudly.

Convinced he was hearing things, he lay down again, only to hear the loud hissing again.

This time he jumped out of bed, turned on the light to discover the deadly snake – whose venom kills by paralysing its prey – half inside his pillow case.

When Allesandro woke his mother Valeria to tell her what had happened she initially thought he was imagining things.

‘I persuaded her to come and look and when she went in and looked at my bed she saw this big cape cobra sticking out of my pillow and was shocked I had actually laid down on it,’ he said.

‘I can’t believe one of Africa’s most dangerous snakes had slithered into my room and up onto my bed and then settled down in my pillow while I popped out to a bar with pals.’

The pair later sealed the door so the snake couldn’t escape and called a snake catcher the next morning who discovered the serpent had barely moved.

‘The snake catcher said it could easily have bitten me with its fangs through the pillow case and at 1am in the morning being out on a farm I would have been in a lot of trouble,’ he said.

‘Now the last two nights when I go to bed it is like I have OCD. I have to look under the bed and under the duvet and under the pillows before I can settle down for a sleep.’

The snake was later released back into the wild.

The cape cobra along with the black mamba are the two deadliest snakes in South Africa.

There are 600 snake bites recorded a year in South Africa with 10 to 12 of those fatal but as much of the country is rural with figures not recorded so the deaths could be far higher.

The number of recorded snake bite deaths a year in Africa is 20,000. This is five times as many as those killed by lions, hippos, elephants, buffalo and crocodiles combined.

This cobra was an adult male 1.2m long and they grow to 2m and inject neurotoxic venom that attacks the central nervous system and stops a victim breathing then they suffocate.

The cobra can kill in as little as 30 minutes but most bite victims survive if they get to hospital within six hours.

Farm manager mum Valeria, 49, said: ‘I knew my son had a few beers with his friends to celebrate the end of his exams and I guess I didn’t believe him until I actually saw it.

‘He had a very close call and he was lucky he didn’t just fall fast asleep on the snake.’

Emile Rossouw, 36, of Stellenbosch Snake Rescue said: ‘I was surprised it was still in the pillow when I got there and it would have found its way in from outside looking for heat.

‘It was a hot day so when it got cold at night it went indoors and found Allesandro’s pillow the perfect place to slither into and he would not have been happy at being woken up.

‘This young man had a very lucky escape as not many sleep in a bed with a cape cobra and get away with it. I caught it and took it to a nature reserve and released it safely.’

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