Mum's horror death after being eaten by python who swallowed her whole

Irish Daily Mirror

28-05-2025

A mother met a horrifying end after she was killed and subsequently consumed by a python.
The woman, a resident of a village, became the second individual in Indonesia to be killed and digested by this species of snake in just over a year.
54 year old Wa Tiba left her home on Muna Island to check on her cornfield when she disappeared, as reported by the Jakarta Post. The field, located approximately 800m from her house, was surrounded by caves, cliffs and several reticulated pythons - the world's longest snakes.
Attacks on humans by pythons, which typically prey on small mammals, are supposed to be as rare as winning the lottery and being struck by lightning simultaneously, according to a report by the Washington Post.
However, in 2017, the year prior to Wa's tragic death, a man's body was retrieved from a 23-foot-long python, as shown in a disturbing YouTube video, reports the Mirror US.
According to the Jakarta Post, Tiba had been worried about wild boars, not snakes, as she walked through her cornfield that night. The pigs had been damaging the crops before she vanished, prompting her to inspect her field.
When she failed to return by dawn, her sister ventured out to the field to search for her.
Upon arrival, her sister discovered only Tiba's footprints, her torch, a machete and slippers. Approximately 100 villagers from Persiapan Lawela soon joined the search, combing the fields together, as reported by Agence France-Presse.
The snake was found a few dozen yards from Tiba's belongings. Reportedly, it was 23 feet long and so bloated it could barely move.
A long bulge midway down its body had an alarming appearance.
The villagers killed the snake and laid it out on the ground. They then gathered around it, clamouring and crying, with some recording videos as a man knelt and carefully cut across the bulge with a machete.
In a scene reminiscent of an incident on another island a year earlier, Tiba lay intact inside the snake, dressed as she had been when she went to check her corn.
Despite being intact, she likely didn't die inside the snake as reticulated pythons secure their prey with a bite, then wrap their body around the victim, squeezing until the victim cannot breathe, before consuming them, according to The Associated Press.
It's so rare for humans to be eaten, The Post wrote, that it's more common to see hoaxes. A single photo of a snake digesting a pig has previously been used to falsely claim attacks on humans in China, Africa and across Southeast Asia.
The two victims in Indonesia were extremely unlucky to fall prey to this species of snake in what was described as very rare circumstances.