A deadly cobra was discovered hiding in the walls of a call centre.
Animal control specialist, Arnold Slabbert, received a phone call from panicked office workers.
Employees at the call centre thought they’d spotted a brown tail slither behind a desk and inside a wall.
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The 57-year-old rushed to the two-storey, open-plan office to take a look.
After pulling a piece of the wall off, he was shocked to discover a 5-foot-long venomous cobra.
It happened in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, on Saturday (Nov 16).
Cobras are the second deadliest snake in the country, following black mambas.
“Staff thought they’d seen a brown snake slither behind a desk and into the wall where the cables are,” Arnold, from Port Elizabeth, told What’s the Jam.
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“I looked underneath and saw a small piece of a tail disappearing into the wall.
“Just from the tail, I could tell it wasn’t a harmless brown snake. It was a cobra and a big one.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been called out to a snake hiding in an office building.
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“They do use walls where the cables are kept to move around and in big offices where there are lots of people, there are rodents so they hunt in there.
“I tried to keep it contained in the corner.
“When we pulled a piece of the wall off, I got a shock because my finger was right by its head.”
Arnold removed the snake and dropped it off in a safe outdoor area.
He said: “Catching him was a bit of effort.
“We used a hook to pick it up.
“They aren’t usually aggressive unless they’ve been tormented.
“We dropped it off in a safe environment.
“You have to drop them off less than 4km from where they’re found or they could die.”
According to National Geographic, the amount of neurotoxin cobras can deliver in a single bite is enough to kill 20 people or even an elephant.
A king cobra’s venom affects the respiratory centres in the brain, causing respiratory arrest and cardiac failure.
Arnold added: “When someone gets bitten by a snake, it feels like a splinter so if they don’t see the snake physically, they don’t know.
“A couple of hours later, they’re burning up and the symptoms take over.
“In an office, if you felt a prick on your hand, never in your wildest dreams would you think it was a cobra.”
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