A grandfather stabs to death 4.2 m of python, saving his grandson

An Australian mother recounted how her son had to be saved from the mouth of a 4.2 m python by his grandfather who had stabbed the snake to death.

Amanda Rutland told the Courrier Mail that she thought the reptile that had caught her 22-month-old son Naish Dobson last Saturday afternoon had been tracking him for several weeks.

Naish played on the veranda with her three-year-old sister, Evie-Blue. at their home in Julatten, Queensland. When Rutland checked the pair, she noticed a strange look on her daughter's face.

"(My daughter) started backing up and looking really weird, and I thought," Oh, oh – there's something wrong, "she told Mail Mail.

"Then I ran into the corner, and there it was: the snake was wrapped around his arm and was getting closer to him."

The python was wrapped by Naish and had bitten his right arm.

Rutland could not fight the snake from him, then called for his father, Ron Rutland.

"My dad, he had to stab (the python) along the spine," she told the publication.

"He started letting go, then I caught my son and he started wrapping around my dad – so he had to kill him."

The family called the emergency services and Naish was rushed to the hospital, where he was treated for snake bites and bruises.

"I think it has to look at my little boy for a while, because he's still in the same place, right up to the end of the porch," she said.

"It was huge, honestly.

"When I went to catch him, I could not pass my hand around the circumference of it – and it was only a little that was wrapped around Naish.

"If I was not there, my son would probably have gone.

"He would have been like a wallaby, of course."

Scouring pythons are the largest snake species in Australia, with reports indicating that they reach 8 m long.