Malaysian woman bitten by baby crocodile, thought it was a 'monitor lizard'
Upon receiving a phone call, civil defence swiftly deployed a team of four individuals to Madam Faridah's residence.
MALACCA — A woman's morning routine took an unexpected twist when she was bitten by what she initially mistook for a harmless lizard, only to discover, upon closer inspection by her son, that it was, in fact, a baby crocodile.
The incident occurred during the early hours of the morning as Faridah Abd Ghani, 65, was cleaning her veranda, when she felt an unexpected and unsettling bite on her left leg.
"It was dark at the time, initially I believed I had been bitten by a monitor lizard. I raised the alarm for my family, and upon closer inspection by my son, it became evident that the creature was, in fact, a crocodile," she recounted to the Malay daily Harian Metro.
According to Faridah, if it had been a lizard, it would have scurried away.
"However, the crocodile remained in place, repeatedly opening its jaws before my son managed to contain it using a food cover," she said.
Upon receiving a phone call at 6.04am, civil defence unit officer Shahrul Riza Saiful Bahry deployed a team of four individuals to Faridah's residence, Harian Metro reported.
Once there, the team safely secured the 30cm-long reptile.
The officials suspected that the creature had strayed from its usual environment, and subsequently handed it over to the Department of Wildlife and National Park for necessary follow-up procedures.
According to Faridah, her residence is in close proximity to Tanjung Bidara beach, where she has previously seen crocodiles swimming in the waters.
Despite the proximity to the reptiles, Faridah claimed that this was the first time a crocodile had appeared within a residential dwelling in the area.
"Fortunately, I escaped unharmed," she said.
Just last month, an elderly woman residing in Negri Sembilan experienced a frightening encounter with a saltwater crocodile near the banks of Sungai Timun.
This terrifying incident was her very first crocodile encounter in her three decades of prawn collecting along the river.
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