Mum reveals terrifying near miss after spotting python lurking outside home
A Queensland mother described the "nightmare" of barricading herself and her toddler inside her home after she spotted a two-metre python outside.
Megan Manly had only repaired a hole her dog had put in her screen door two hours before discovering the serpent outside her door last Thursday.
The woman said it was lucky she had mended the door, or the snake would have made its way inside where she was taking cover with her two-year-old son, Sam.
"I was about to leave the house to pick up my eldest son from school when I saw my dog up on his hunches, with his hair standing up looking outside," she told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
"Before the snake catcher came I had barricaded us in the lounge, in case the snake came through the screen door. If I hadn't have fixed it earlier that day, it would have come inside."
Mrs Manly said she had been visited by a keelback snake a week before the python surfaced, but she suspected a second snake was hanging around when Sam found a large layer of skin in the backyard six weeks ago.
"We knew there was a python hanging around when my son found that skin, but thought it had moved along," she said.
She said her property backed onto a grassy reserve area and park.
In a series of pictures Mrs Manly took, the snake's full belly indicated it had recently fed; Mrs Manly suspected it could have been a rat or cane toad.
She also shared footage to Facebook of a snake catcher coming to the rescue, capturing the monster serpent.
"I was shaking, and crying and the rest of it. Freaking nightmare stuff!!" she wrote in a comment with the post.
"It was horrific - I am petrified of snakes ... I can take spiders, sharks and I would even rather a grizzly bear in my backyard over a snake," she told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
The Sunshine Coast mum said the python appeared agitated, perhaps because the dog was barking at it. She added it was lucky her dog was acting strange and drew attention to the snake, or she might have walked outside and stood on it.
