Grandfather stabs 4.2m python to death, rescuing grandson

Rutland believes the reptile had been stalking her young son for several weeks. Photo / Getty Images

An Australian mother has told how her son had to be rescued from the jaws of a 4.2m python by his grandfather who stabbed the snake to death.

Amanda Rutland told the Courier Mail she believes the reptile that grabbed son Naish Dobson, 22 months, last Saturday afternoon had been stalking him for several weeks.

Naish was playing on the veranda with his three-year-old sister, Evie-Blue. at their home in Julatten, Queensland. When Rutland checked on the pair, she noticed a strange look on her daughter's face.

"(My daughter) started backing up and looking at me really weird, and I just thought 'uh-oh — something's wrong'," she told the Courier Mail.

"So I raced around the corner, and there it was: the snake was wrapped around his arm, and getting closer to him."

The python was wrapped Naish and had bitten his right arm.

Rutland couldn't wrestle the snake off him so called for her father Ron Rutland.

"My father, he had to stab (the python) down the spine," she told the publication.

"It started to let go, then I grabbed my son, and it started to wrap around my father — so he had to kill it."

The family rang emergency services and Naish was rushed to hospital where he was treated for snake bites and some bruising.

"I think it must have been watching my little boy for some time, because he's always in that same spot, up that end of the veranda," she said.

"It was huge, honestly.

"When I went to grab it, I couldn't get my hand around the girth of it — and that was only one bit that was wrapped around Naish.

"If I wasn't there, no doubt my son would have been gone.

"He would have been just like a wallaby to it, for sure."

Scrub pythons are the largest snake species in Australia, with reports of them growing up to 8m long.