This is the astonishing moment a grandmother was found alive - while being suffocated by a python in a four-hour attack.

Arrom Arunroj, 64, had just finished eating dinner and was washing dishes in her outdoor kitchen at around 6 pm when she felt a sudden stab of pain in her right thigh.

She looked down thinking it was a monitor lizard that had bitten her - only to see a massive 13ft reticulated python snaking up her leg.

Mother-of-two Arrom said she panicked and tried to yank the python's head away from her. However, she fell over, which allowed the 45lbs beast to wrap itself tightly around her torso.

The frail widow said she struggled for more than two hours - unable to lift herself from the floor - before her screams were finally heard by a neighbour who then called the police who arrived at her home in Samut Prakan, Thailand, just after 10 pm on September 17.

Dramatic footage shows an injured Arrom sitting helplessly on the ground as the mammoth python brutally constricted her waist and torso.

Arrom was driven to the hospital for treatment, where her relatives arrived to check on her.

She said: 'I work as a housekeeper at a children's hospital in Bangkok. I had been renting this room with my husband for many years, but he passed away last year. I have been living alone since then.

'I didn't notice the snake until it had bit me. I looked down and it was coiling around my leg.

'I was scared that the python would kill me, so I screamed at the top of my lungs until a passer-by heard me. I have never been so terrified in my life.

'The snake just would not let go of me. I'm sure it was waiting for me to die so it could eat me. So I just prayed and did my best to stay alive.'

Rescue volunteers gave the exhausted Arrom first aid. Her arms had gone pale and numb after the suffocation attack, and she had wounds on her leg from where the python had sank its fangs.

Police Sergeant Major Anusorn Wongmalee, commander of the Crime Prevention and Suppression Unit of the Phra Samut Chedi Police Station, said cops received the report at 10 pm.

The police boss said: 'The scene of the incident was a single-storey rental apartment with five rooms built next to each other. In the fourth room where the victim lived, the door was locked.

'The police and rescue workers could hear her weak cries from inside so we broke down the door to rescue her. What we saw shocked us.

'The elderly woman was being squeezed by a huge python that must have weighed more than 45lbs. We used whatever tools we could to try to pry her free from it. It took more than 30 minutes to remove the snake. It was then released back into the forest behind the room.

The reticulated python is found throughout Thailand but it is rare for them to attack humans. The species is smaller than in neighbouring countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

They are non-venomous but kill their prey by stunning them with a bite before wrapping around them and crushing them to death.