The python struck when the boy was walking around the edge of the swimming pool.
A five-year-old boy in Australia miraculously survived after being dragged into the swimming pool by a python three times its size, according to a report in the BBC. The boy, identified as Beau Blake, was with his father and grandfather for a swim at home in Byron Bay, New South Wales, on Thursday when the 10-foot python struck. The reptile wrapped itself around the boy and dragged him inside the pool. Beau's grandfather, 76, dived into the pool and rescued the boy. His father, who was also at the scene, freed the boy's leg.
"Beau was just walking around the edge of the pool... and I believe the python was sort of sitting there waiting for a victim to come along... and Beau was it. I saw a big black shadow come out of the bush and completely wrapped itself around his leg," the boy's father Ben was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Recalling the bravery shown by the boy's grandfather, Ben said, "He passed him up to me and then I had to separate the two. I released him from his leg. It was somewhat of an ordeal."
Beau escaped with minor injuries and is doing good.
"Once we cleaned up the blood and told him that he wasn't going to die because it wasn't a poisonous snake... he was pretty good actually," Ben told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
Last month, a 52-year-old woman was swallowed whole by a python in Indonesia's Jambi province. According to local reports, the body was found after the villagers, who were looking for the woman, killed and cut open the snake.
Jahrah, a rubber tapper, had gone missing on her way to work. Police initiated a search after the woman's family filed a missing complaint when she did not return from work.
A day later, one of the search parties found a python with what appeared to be a large stomach. The locals found Jahrah's body inside the python when they cut it open.