Kannur: A washing machine technician narrowly escaped a bite from an Indian cobra after he mistook the snakeling coiled around the paddles of the machine for a piece of wet cloth during a routine visit for repair in a house at Taliparamba in Kannur.

Janardhanan Kadamberi was attending a house call for repairs. After the initial work, he tried to operate the machine and found something rotating inside. He put his hand inside the machine, mistaking the rotating thing for a piece of cloth. Upon realising it was a snake, he quickly pulled his hand back and alerted the homeowners.

The house owner PV Babu was also in a shock.”We have no clue how the snake got trapped inside the washing machine. The machine has not been functioning for the past two weeks and we have kept the top-loading machine closed. There is no possibility of a snake entering the machine and we are still clueless. When the serviceman put his hands to grab it, the snake reared up with its hood flared out. The serviceman had a narrow escape,” said Babu.

The house owner called the animal rescuer belonging to Malabar Awareness and Rescue Centre for Wildlife (MARC) and Forest Anil Thrichambaram. “This is a first time that I have found a cobra inside a washing machine. It is around two to three weeks old. It might have entered through the drain pipe,” Anil said.

There is a vacant plot with dense vegetation at the rear of the house. Many snakes have been spotted there. The rescued snake was later freed to its natural habitat.