This is the heart-stopping moment a woman accidentally stepped on a live cobra.

Housewife Kesara Pettako went to check their laundry room after hearing a strange noise from the back of their home in Trang province, southern Thailand on July 16 evening.

The woman was about to pick up the basin that had fallen onto the floor but while she was walking, she unknowingly stepped on the deadly cobra.

After feeling the cold reptile brush her foot, the terrified woman’s heart began pounding at her brush with death. She rushed inside the house and called the emergency services for help catching the serpent.

Kesara said: ‘Just the thought of the cobra slithering past my foot makes my skin crawl. I was lucky enough it did not bite me. It must have been startled as well.’

The deadly creature was later taken away by animal rescuers and released into the wild.

A cobra’s venom is a neurotoxin that stops the victim’s breathing and heartbeat which could be deadly if not treated properly.

Around 81,000 to 138,000 people die each year because of snake bites, and around three times as many amputations and other permanent disabilities are caused by snakebites annually.

The different species of cobras are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.