‘Don’t Move’: Woman Wakes to Find 8-Ft Python Coiled on Her Chest

In the dead of night in Brisbane, Rachel Bloor stirred from sleep under a strange, heavy weight pressed against her chest—initially brushing it off as her dog seeking comfort. But when her hand slid over something unnervingly smooth and muscular beneath the sheets, a wave of chilling realization washed over her: this was no pet. “To my horror, I realized it wasn’t my dog,” Bloor recounted. With her heart pounding, she woke her husband, whose bedside manner was a masterclass in understated Australian calm: “Oh baby. Don’t move. There is like a 2.5-meter python on you.” In that paralyzing moment, under the glow of the bedroom light, Bloor found herself face-to-face with a nearly eight-foot carpet python that had silently slithered into her second-story bedroom and chosen her as its resting place.

Displaying a stunning level of composure, Bloor’s first thought was to avert “carnage” between the invasive snake and her curious Dalmatian. Once the dogs were safely removed, rather than dialing for professional help, she calmly “side-shuffled” out from under the serpentine blanket and took matters—and the python—into her own hands. “I grabbed him,” she said, noting the reptile “sort of just wobbled in my hand” as she guided it back out through the window it had entered. Snake catchers attribute such brazen home invasions to breeding season and expanding suburbs encroaching on bushland, warning that gaps in doors and shutters offer perfect entry points for displaced wildlife. For Bloor, who confessed that toads “freak me out” more than pythons, the encounter ended as quietly as it began—a shockingly serene midnight eviction, proving that sometimes, the most terrifying wake-up call requires nothing more than a steady hand and the whispered instruction: don’t move.