6ft pensioner battles 16ft PYTHON after it snuck into her home to eat her Yorkshire Terriers: 62-year-old South African bashes giant snake with baking dish

A brave 6-foot pensioner tiptoed to her kitchen in pitch darkness armed with a baking dish to tackle a burglar, but instead encountered a giant 15-foot python that she feared was would go to the Yorkshire Terriers.

Unable to turn on the light as South Africa is currently experiencing frequent power cuts, Sharon Norton, 62, waited until she pushed open the door to turn on her trusty flashlight.

The retired real estate agent expected to surprise a thief and beat him senseless with her heavy steel roasting pan, but got the shock of her life when she lit up the room.

The divorcee from Port Edward in KwaZulu-Natal province, 160 kilometers south of Durban, said: ‘This huge snake just came in front of me, let out a huge hiss and went towards me!

‘My heart was in my throat when I saw his jaws in the light of the torch and I hit him hard on the head a few times and he backed away still hissing angrily.

Sharon Norton said she would have rather seen a burglar than the monstrous snake

The snake catcher said that at 4.5 meters this South African Python was one of the largest specimens he had ever been called to.

‘These things can eat impala and bushbuck and I’m only six feet tall, so if it had held me in its jaws I don’t think I could have done anything to stop it swallowing my whole piece!

‘His head was moving very quickly and you don’t realize how fast they are. Give me a burglar!

‘Once I realized it was a python, I knew it had come in after my Yorkshire Terriers when I bred them and had eleven of them. I had fifteen, but three other pythons ate four.

“This giant obviously came in to No. 5 for his dinner and was as surprised to see me as I was,” said Sharon, whose grandfather was from Inverness in Ayrshire, Scotland.

She continued, “The python was huge and its body was thicker than my thighs, and it was walking backwards between the refrigerator and the wall with its jaws open, looking for something to attack.

‘A local snake catcher has been to my farm three times before and I called him and he told me to sit tight and keep an eye on him and that he would be there in an hour.

“So there I was sitting in the kitchen with my cookie sheet looking at the big old snake looking at me until the snake removal guy showed up with a friend to catch it,” Sharon said.

The snake catcher said that at 4.5 meters this South African Python was one of the largest specimens he had ever been called to and could have easily killed the brave pensioner.

Sarel van der Merwe, 58, said: ‘I’d been there three times before because the farm is something of a magnet for pythons, with these little Yorkshire Terriers running around like tasty targets.

“It was after midnight when I got there with my neighbor AJ Pretorius, who volunteered to help. When Sharon told me how big it was, I knew it was going to be a two-man job.

It took two men to handle the huge beast that snuck into Sharon’s house after she left the door open overnight

“The python was huge and its body was thicker than my thighs, and it was backing away between the refrigerator and the wall with its jaws open, looking to strike at something,” Sharon said.

“This big guy put up quite a battle but we managed to get him out of his hiding hole and then had quite a job getting him into a snake box to get him out,” he said.

Sharon added: ‘I’m on a farm and I breed Yorkies and it seems the pythons know. One of my dogs barked that night and I thought he was warning me of someone downstairs.

‘The noise made me think it might have been someone sneaking in rather than wild animals, but when I turned on the torch a python came running the length of the kitchen towards me.

‘It was huge compared to the python that took one of my Yorkies in January and the other in November that had two dogs and a few months before that I lost another.

‘I no longer leave the door open at night, which I used to do so the dogs could use the garden because of the pythons, but that night I forgot to close and lock the door.

“I think I would have rather seen someone break in than a snake that size,” she said

Professional snake catcher Sarel from nearby Shelly Beach weighed the South African Python, which tipped the scales at 56 pounds and measured 16 feet in length in a shadow of less than 16 feet.

The largest African snake and one of the largest in the world, it grows up to 6 meters in length and can weigh up to 20 kg, but rarely attacks humans and normally hunts its prey at night.

They are not poisonous, but can bite ferociously with large curved teeth and crush prey to death with enormous force, eating dogs, chickens, crocodiles, monkeys, goats and wild deer.

The snake was safely released in the nearby Mpenjati Nature Reserve, a 150-hectare wetland with a river and an estuary without predators, where monkeys and deer live.