Toddler in India bites cobra to death in bizarre encounter

The two-year-old boy bit the head of the venomous snake and passed out, but survived the experience

A two-year-old boy in India’s eastern state of Bihar killed a cobra by biting it after the venomous snake had slithered too close to him.

Govinda Kumar was playing at home in Bankatwa village when he spotted the nearly metre-long snake, tried to grab it, only to have the reptile coil around his hands and attack him, according to local media.

The boy’s grandmother was quoted as saying that Govinda’s reaction was to bite the snake’s head, killing it on the spot. The child then passed out and was rushed to hospital.

Grandmother Mateshwari Devi told local media: “I was moving firewood near the house and the cobra came out … We rushed towards the boy and saw he had taken the cobra’s head into his mouth. We then separated the cobra from his mouth and hands.

“The cobra died on the spot, while the child fell unconscious.”

The Hindustan Times reported that the child had bitten so hard into the snake that it was ripped in two.

According to India Today, village locals had said the boy was possibly agitated by the snake coming too close to him.

Govinda was transferred to the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) Bettiah for specialist care, where doctors said they treated up to six snake bites monthly but had never seen such a “highly unusual case”. The child was believed to have lost consciousness from ingesting the snake’s venom when he bit it.

The Telegraph quoted Dr Saurab Kumar, associate professor in the GMCH Bettiah’s paediatrics department, as saying that Govinda seemingly survived as the venom had not entered his bloodstream from the snake’s bite – as is usually the case. The child had instead ingested the poison by eating “part of the cobra”.

“I received the child active and alert but his mouth and face was swollen because of the reaction to the venom in the oral cavity.

“We were surprised and cross-checked with his parents multiple times to ensure the child was not bitten by the cobra to rule out that venom had not gone into his bloodstream. They told us he bit the cobra and the snake died on the spot.”

Govinda was discharged on Saturday, a day after the harrowing incident that made headlines across India.

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The Times of India drew parallels with the Hindu legend of Lord Krishna – also known as Govinda – who vanquished the venomous serpent Kaliya Naag in the Yamuna river.

India is home to multiple species of cobra, with the Indian cobra among the “big four” that account for the most snake bites in the country. Cobra venom contains toxins that target the nervous system and can damage body tissues and blood cells, with its severity varying across species.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) figures from 2023, an estimated 5.4 million people worldwide are bitten by snakes each year, with up to 137,880 deaths from snake bites, while amputations or permanent disabilities could be up to three times as many. India alone accounts for half of the snake-bite-related deaths, according to a report by website News Decoder earlier this year.

Contacts between humans and snakes are expected to become more pronounced or frequent in some regions along with an increase in the risk of snakebite cases due to climate change, according to a report released last year by the WHO.