The Southern African Wildlife College offers a one year course preparing for a career as a safari guide, costing UK£ 5595 / US$ 10,910 / € 8395, including “dangerous game experience.”

The Telegraph story reports that one of the lessons included the transfer of a black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) between containers, in the course of which a British student, one Nathan Layton, 28, was bitten.

Neither Layton nor the college’s staff believed the snake had injected any venom, so the lecture was resumed. Twenty minutes later, however, Mr. Layton went into a coma, and subsequently died.

The late Nathan Layton with girlfriend