Emergency surgery saves cobra with fishhook stuck in its throat in east India

Villagers in eastern India were shocked when they discovered a wild cobra had swallowed a hook on a fishing line on October 19.

They alerted Snake Helpline, which rushed two volunteers over 60km to the village of Jaleswar near Balasore, Odisha.

The pair, Shyamalendu Aditya and Girijananda Das, found that the four-feet-long and five-year-old cobra had swallowed the bait along with the hook, which was embedded in its throat.

Realising that the snake needed surgical intervention Snake Helpline founder, Subhendu Mallik, asked Aditya and Das to get the snake to Bhubaneswar, which was 260km away.

On October 20, the snake was taken to the Veterinary College at Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology for treatment.

Dr. Biswadeep Jena performed an X-ray on the cobra and determined the location of the hook. He put the cobra under general anaesthesia and cut through the skin and a small part of oesophagus to remove the iron hook.

The snake spent 90 minutes on the operation table and woke up from anaesthesia after 40 minutes.

“The snake is responding well to medication. The hook had pierced into the oesophagus making it impossible to swallow anything. It would have died if we had not removed the hook,” said Dr Jena.

Subhendu Mallik said: “We will put the snake on appropriate diet till its wound completely heals. Then we will release it in its habitat.”