Cobra-in-bed scare for Dutch tourist in Malaysian hotel

Cobra-in-bed scare for Dutch tourist in Malaysian hotel

KUALA LUMPUR: A Dutch tourist who looked under his pillow in a Malaysian hotel room after he felt something wriggling there was temporarily blinded in one eye when a cobra spat at him.

Jaroean Ferdinand, 27, was due to fly home Wednesday after spending two days in hospital in the historic southern port city of Malacca, the member of parliament for the area, Sim Tong Him, told AFP.

Local media quoted Ferdinand as saying: "After checking into the hotel room (in Malacca), I settled down for a rest. But seconds later, I felt something wriggling under my pillow."

As he lifted the pillow, a 0.6 metre (one-and-a-half-foot) cobra lunged at him, missing him by centimeters as he ducked. But the reptile managed to spit venom into his right eye.

On hearing his screams, hotel staff rushed to his aid, killed the snake and took Ferdinand to hospital.

A Malacca Hospital spokeswoman said Ferdinand "suffered a laceration to the outer layer of his cornea" but had recovered well and was released Tuesday.

Equatorial spitting cobras are common in older, more wooded residential areas of towns and cities in many parts of Southeast Asia.

The blindness inflicted by the neurotoxic venom is temporary, but its bite can be fatal. -- AFP