According to local Indonesian media source Bangka Pos, 37-year-old Robert was driving a moped when he stumbled across a reticulated python, a species of python found in Southeast Asia that can devour full-grown pigs and even humans.
"It was unbelievably huge," local police chief Sutarja told AFP.
Although there were two other people trying to cross the same street, Robert was the only one who approached the snake.
The python ended up coiling around Robert and sinking its teeth deep into his left arm.
— Bangkaposdotcom (@bangkapos) October 2, 2017
Robert was quickly rushed to an emergency room and had to undergo surgery.
"I tried to catch it. It bit my arm, and we wrestled for a while," Robert told Indonesian TV reporters from his hospital bed.
Although the details of the rest the encounter are not clear, the massive snake was eventually killed and ended up hanging dead from two pillars in a yard. The reptile was later fried and eaten for dinner by hungry locals, according to Bangka Pos.
Pythons are a recurrent problem throughout the archipelago. On March 27, villagers on the island of Sulawesi went searching for a man who never returned from a palm oil fruit harvest. They eventually found pieces of fruit, a boot, a picking tool and a 23-foot-long python, the New York Post Reported. Upon slicing the python open, they realized that the slithering snake had eaten the body of 25-year-old farmer Akbar Salubiro.
