LUPANE – A man is believed dead at the bottom of a 45-meter deep well after a snake bite – but rescuers are too petrified to retrieve his body.

Sandile Mguni, 25, was scooping mud from the well with a friend in Makhekhe Village in Lupane when he shouted that he had been bitten by a snake on November 14.

He fell out of a bucket that had been used to lower him into the well, say police.

But almost a week later, Mguni’s body is yet to be brought to the surface, reports The Chronicle.

Chief Inspector Siphiwe Makonese of Matabeleland North police said: “On November 15 we received a report of suspected sudden death by snake bite or suffocation from a well. The victim, who we can’t confirm dead for now since the body hasn’t been retrieved, was in the company of two others doing some domestic work at Glen Moyo’s homestead where they were employed to scoop mud from a well.

“A week before the incident, they spotted the snake and boiled a drum full of water which they poured in the well to kill the snake. They stopped working and returned on November 14 at 7AM intending to resume work.”

She said Mguni was lowered into the well by a colleague, and he reported back that he could see the snake but assumed it was dead from the hot water they poured in the well a week earlier.

Mguni was pulled back to the surface where he picked up a spear and a bucket, Makonese said. He was going to use the bucket to put the dead snake.

“As his colleagues were lowering him down again, they heard a hissing sound and Mguni suddenly called out that he had been bitten. They pulled back the rope but only an empty bucket came up,” she said.

Last Saturday, the Civil Protection Unit gathered the police sub-aqua unit, rangers from Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, the Forestry Commission and the Bulawayo Fire Brigade – but they were all too afraid to go to the bottom of the well.

Snake catchers from Bulawayo are believed to be the latest group that will try and capture the reptile to allow for Mguni’s body to be finally recovered.

Locals believe the snake at the bottom of the well would be one of the highly venomous types, possibly a black mamba, judging by the quick time it took for Mguni to become non-responsive.