'I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES'

A bite from a spitting cobra 13 years ago nearly killed her but Mikayla survived - and she's made peace with her scars

- NADINE RAMONGANE

WHEN she thinks back to her days as a little girl, one dark memory overwhelms everything – and it’s the kind of thing most people experience only in their nightmares. Mikayla Robbertse was just five years old and she was doing the most normal thing in the world – going to bed.

“We lived on a farm in Lephalale [formerly Ellisras] in Limpopo at the time and I wanted to go to sleep,” she recalls.

She had no idea of the horror that awaited in her bed and how it would change her life in a split second.

A Mozambique spitting cobra had slithered between her sheets and Mikayla lay down on top of it.

The reptile, one of Southern Africa’s most venomous creatures, struck instantly.

“The first bite was on my elbow and the second was on my middle finger,” she tells YOU from the smallholding in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, where she now lives.

It nearly cost her life but Mikayla is now a go-getter of an 18-year-old, enjoying her dream job and looking forward to adulthood.

The results of that night are still clearly visible. One finger was amputated when gangrene set in because it would have required too many surgeries to treat.

Mikayla made headlines at the time and YOU covered the story of the little girl bitten by one of Africa's most treacherous snakes.

There were articles about the first surgeries that saved her life and about later futile attempts to restore her finger.

All in all, she endured 41 surgeries.

But here she is, 13 years later. She’s lived to tell the tale and she’s living life to the fullest.

MIKAYLA is a charming young woman with a ready smile who loves talking about what she’s up to now.

“I’m an assistant at a special school and work with children who have autism,” she says.

“I like working with the children - it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s good to know I can make a difference.”