Snake king Ali Khan dies from cobra bite
His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra.
Ali Khan, who regularly performs with his beloved snakes for charity and for a living, died at 1am yesterday at Kuala Lumpur Hospital where he had been recuperating.
Amjad Khan related that when his father contacted him on Tuesday to tell him he had been bitten, the family had not been too worried.
“He had been bitten by snakes many times before, including three times by King Cobras. The first King Cobra bit him in Taiping when he was 21.
“So we didn’t think anything would happen. I was just relaks saja (calm),” said Amjad Khan at their flat in Kampung Boyan here yesterday.
On Thursday night, his condition took a turn for the worse. Family members here received a call from Amjad Khan’s uncle to go to the hospital.
Well known for his daring feats with cobras, Ali Khan had also made it into the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records, living in a glass enclosure filled with more than 5,000 scorpions for 21 days. He set another record by living with 400 snakes for 40 days.