Cobra bites man's face

A Kempton Park bookkeeper has been bitten on the face by a Mozambican spitting cobra while sleeping at a lodge in North West.

A severe pain in his left eye woke Werner Bronkhorst, 25, at the Pilanesberg Game Reserve at the weekend. He heard a hissing noise and realised it was a snake.

"You instinctively know it's a snake. I felt it bite me again, on the eye, and I grabbed it and threw it to one side. I felt blood running down my face," he said.

He ran for help, pausing only to grab a packet of cigarettes, "because I knew I was going to need them".

According to Bronkhorst, the snake also attacked a water bottle and an empty cigarette box lying on the floor next to the bed.

"That snake wasn't right," he said.

Rangers capture the reptile and released it into the park.

Bronkhorst was admitted to the Ferncrest Hospital, in Rustenburg, where he was reportedly in a stable condition.

Professor Graham Alexander, a snake expert at the University of the Witwatersrand, said he suspected that Bronkhorst might have rolled onto the snake in his sleep, and frightened the animal.

"Snakes don't just attack," he said.