JUNIOR Colin Steven, a farmer of Somerset and Berks on the Essequibo Coast, is thanking God for saving his life after he unknowingly fetched a large labaria in a bunch of plantains on his shoulders Saturday.According to Steven, he went to his farm at Cozier and cut a large bunch of plantains and while fetching it out on his shoulders to the public road, some two miles away, he stopped for a rest near the Somerset and Berks sluice. As he put down the plantains, he was shocked to see the large poisonous snake coiled up among the fruit.

The farmer said the snake looked as if it had just swallowed a small animal. He realised that if the reptile had struck him he would have died.
The father of three young children said he killed the snake.

(Rajendra Prabhulall in Essequibo)