A CHEF was killed after he was bit by the severed head of a snake that he was preparing for a dish.
Peng Fan had chopped the head off the Indochinese spitting cobra, a delicacy in Asia, to make a snake soup.
Around 20 minutes later he was tossing it in the rubbish when the snake’s head bit him, injecting him with its lethal venom, the Mirror reported.
Restaurant guests reported hearing screams from the kitchen.
The chef from Shunde, a district in the city of Foshan in southern China’s Guangdong province, was rushed to hospital but died before he could be given an anti-venom.
A police spokesman called it “a highly unusual caseâ€.
He said: “There was nothing that could be done to save the man. Only the anti-venom could have helped but this was not given in time. It was just a tragic accident.â€