A snake wrangler struggled to catch a king cobra after it wrapped itself around his body.

The rescue team were called by pensioner Suhapp Paiboonsawat, 66, who was woken up by the deadly reptile which had slithered under his bed in Songkhla, southern Thailand.

He looked under the mattress and saw the glistening eyes of the serpent, which darted out across the tiles and tried to slither up the wall on Sunday (March 8) morning.

Suphap rushed out of the room and slammed the door before calling the emergency services once he had recovered his composure.

Two rescuers arrived at the bedroom and found the 10ft long ferocious king cobra stretching its body out along the ground. It began hissing when they walked into the room.

The volunteers used snake catching rods to hook the serpent's head but it kept resisting even after it was hooked.

They pinned down the king cobra's head but it used its long body to coil around the rescuer's waist.

The team took 30 minutes before they were eventually able to catch the snake and shove it into a sack to be released back into the wild.

The shaken pensioner said he thought that the snake was going to kill him.

Suhapp said: "The snake's movement beside my mattress woke me up. If I hadn't woken up it would have bitten me and killed me.

''The size of the snake terrified me. I feel very lucky that I was able to get out of the room before it attacked.''