Vets Retrieve Liquor Bottle Cap From Intestine Of Cobra In Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: The veterinary surgeons on Thursday retrieved plastic cap of a liquor bottle from the intestine of a cobra through surgery in the city.

The snake was spotted under the building materials in the campus of under-construction house of Asutosh Dash of Basudeb Nagar in the morning. Pn beng informed, Arun Kumar Baral, a volunteer of Snake Helpline reached the spot and rescued a 3.5 feet long Monocled cobra.

Arun found the cobra in very low health condition and a lump in its abdomen. As he felt something hard substance inside, but was not sure of what it was, he took the snake to the Snake Helpline office.

On examining the snake, Subhendu Mallik, general secretary of Snake Helpline suspected it to be a round inert material and took it to the College of Veterinary Science, OUAT, Bhubaneswar.

The X-ray of the snake revealed a foreign body inside its abdomen but the material could not be ascertained. The doctors decided to remove the foreign body through surgery.

Dr Indramani Nath, Professor & Head of Department of Veterinary Surgery & Radiology and Dr Siddharth Shankar Behera, assistant professor and their team conducted the surgery. During the surgery, a plastic cap was retrieved from the intestine. The snake was given antibiotics and painkillers and kept under observation.

The plastic cap was identified as that of a liquor bottle. The doctors said the bottle cap must have been thrown in open and a rat taken it to the bushes. Attracted by the rat’s smell coming out of the plastic cap, the cobra must have swallowed it, they added.

“The snake was brought in a very low health condition with dehydration and no reserve body fat. The foreign body was retrieved successfully and the snake was doing well. However, we have to be watchful for next 7 days. We are planning to give the snake liquid food after 4 days,” said Dr Nath.

Mallik said “The cobra must have swallowed the cap at least three months ago. Therefore, it was suffering from severe dehydration and it must not have taken food since the ingestion of the cap”.