Nai Harn lifeguard Nara Ratnarak told The Phuket News that he personally caught a snake spotted swimming out of the water and onto the beach at about 4.20pm.
Mr Nara explained that he heard people screaming and shouting "Snake! Snake!" in Thai language and rushed to the scene to discover a serpent in the water among a group of people.
"People were screaming and trying to avoid that snake. Then the snake came up on the sand, and this was where I grabbed it with bare hands in a couple of minutes,” Mr Nara explained.
“I think this snake came from Koh Man, which is not far from Nai Harn beach,” he added.
Mr Nara explained that the serpent turned out to be a rat snake, a species presenting no danger to people. Yet the reptile measured about three metres long.
The snake was released into the wild away from the beach and residential areas.
"I am not sure why the snake came up here. I could not talk to the snake," he said laughing.
Mr Nara added that his three-metre-long rat snake was not the first catch on that day.
"A green snake was also found in the morning (around 10am) near Nai Harn lake where people usually jog. I spotted it on a tree while driving to the beach” Mr Nara said.
This time Mr Nara did not try to catch the snake himself and just waited for Rawai Municipality snake-catchers to arrive and deal with the serpent which turned out to be two-and-a-half-metre long venomous “green pit viper”. This snake was also released into the wild later.
“Nobody got injured,” Mr Nara said.
“Please, in case of encounter with a snake call local lifeguards or municipality officials to deal with it. Don not try to catch the snake yourself,” Mr Nara stressed.
Of note, Mr Nara already hit the headlines last year when he barehandedly caught a two-metre-long rat snake at Nai Harn beach. Pictures of Mr Nara kissing his snake received a lot of reactions on social media.