A MELBOURNE woman is in hospital after her pet python wrapped itself around her neck while she was on the phone last night.

The 53-year-old woman had been playing with her pet python as she spoke to her relative in her home in Melbourne’s east before the two metre-long snake wrapped itself around her neck a number of times and started squeezing tightly.

Struggling to breathe, the middle-aged woman managed to pull the snake off her before calling triple zero just before 8pm.

“She had neck injuries and was suffering a headache and blurred vision due to the fact the snake had been wrapped so tightly around her neck,” paramedic Jason Pitman said.

“Between myself and my partner, we have more than 35 years’ experience and neither of us have ever been called to a case like this.”

She was transferred from Box Hill Hospital to Melbourne’s Eye and Ear Hospital last night, and is in a stable condition.

The python is back in its enclosure.