{"id":410337,"date":"2018-03-16T13:39:46","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T13:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=410337"},"modified":"2018-03-16T13:39:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T13:39:46","slug":"malaysian-snake-handling-celebrity-dies-cobra-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=410337","title":{"rendered":"Malaysian ‘snake-handling celebrity’ dies of cobra bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Malaysian man who became famous for his snake-handling skills has died after being bitten by a cobra.<\/p>\n

Abu Zarin Hussin, a firefighter, first shot to fame after British tabloids published a story incorrectly identifying him as a Thai man who’d allegedly married his pet snake.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussin had trained other firefighters on how to handle snakes.<\/p>\n

But he was admitted to hospital on Monday after being bitten a cobra during a snake-catching operation.<\/p>\n

According to local news outlet The Star,\u00a0the 33-year-old who lived in the state of Pahang, often taught other firemen how to identify different snake species\u00a0and ways to capture them without having to kill.<\/p>\n

\"\"
File photo of a King Cobra, the world’s longest venomous snake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He had also participated in television programme Asia’s Got Talent, where he pulled off the daring act of “kissing” a snake.<\/p>\n

In 2016, a story was published in Thai media – and later in several UK tabloids – naming Mr Hussin as a Thai man who’d married a snake, believing it to be his “reincarnated girlfriend”.<\/p>\n

The stories used pictures from Mr Hussin’s social media which showed him playfully spending time with snakes.<\/p>\n

Mr Hussin, who kept four snakes at home to better understand their behaviour, told reporters: “They used my photos and started making up stories, saying that I married a snake.”<\/p>\n

He later told the BBC he was “very disappointed” by the fake reports.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Malaysian man who became famous for his snake-handling skills has died after being bitten by a cobra. Abu Zarin Hussin, a firefighter, first shot to fame after British tabloids published a story incorrectly identifying him as a Thai man who’d allegedly married his pet snake. Mr Hussin had trained other firefighters on how to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":410339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[16330,17972,17973,17974],"class_list":["post-410337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-firefighting","tag-king-cobra","tag-malaysian-firefighter","tag-snake-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=410337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/410339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=410337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=410337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=410337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}