Over confidence and extraordinary grit, the tale of zoo keeper who died of King Cobra bite

The zoo keeper dying of King Cobra's bite in Thiruvananthapuram zoo is the first incident in Kerala since the King Cobras though most venomous don't usually attack humans. His prolonged exposure to snakes turned him over confident to ignore safety norms while he also displayed extraordinary courage in handling the situation after bitten by the reptile. His presence of mind to close the cage before coming out after bitten saved the zoo from a very dangerous situation, according to officials.

Thiruvananthapuram(Kerala): The CCTV visuals at Thiruvananthapuram zoo revealed what transpired inside the snake cage where the zoo keeper was bitten by the King Cobra and later died in hospital on July 1. The 45-years-old A Harshad died of snake bite while he was cleaning a shift cage in the 'reptile house' — a separate attraction at Trivandrum Zoo. The prolonged exposure to the snakes turned him comfortable to a point of over-confidence when he let of the usual guard down while dealing with the most venomous snake in the world.

Armed with half-inch-long fangs and with the ability to eject seven millilitres (almost one-and-half teaspoon) of venom per bite, King Cobra is the most lethal snake in the wild and its one bite can kill even an elephant, the largest mammal on the world. A person if bitten will die in 15 minutes following nervous system failure. In spite of such power, it is a rare occurrence where one dies of King Cobra bite because the snake hardly encounter a human being in its usual habitat of the thick jungle.

Even if it comes face to face with a human being, the King Cobra will try its best to avoid the encounter by slithering away into the forest or scare away by raising its really massive hood. Harshad is the first casualty to King Cobra in Kerala since only four people in the country have died of the reptile's bite, as per the records.

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Harshad, according to zoo officials, was engaged in cleaning the King Cobra enclosure on that fateful day. He cleaned the main enclosure after moving the snake to a shift cage. The snake is supposed to be transferred back to the main enclosure before cleaning the shift cage. Zoo Director S Abu said it is clear from the CCTV footage that Harshad tried to clean the cage while the snake was still inside the shift cage.

The deceased caretaker of reptiles had suffered a bite by an anaconda in the past. But he survived the bite since the snake is venomous in nature. The Thiruvananthapuram Zoo has three king cobras, Karthik, Neela and Naga. Among them, the cobra named Karthik, which attacked Harshad, was brought from the Pilikula Biological Park from Mangaluru. Usually, the King Cobra and the employees are never supposed to be together in the cage for the safety of employees. It is believed that Harshad's confidence in dealing with snakes for years led to the accident.

But what followed next was a sheer grit of Harshad who managed the situation so well. Even after bitten, he locked the cage thus confining the snake inside the cage in spite of his suffering. Had he not locked the cage, the snake could have gone out turning the situation more dangerous, zoo's doctor Jacob Alexander said.

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