Snake Bites Walker

Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum

Help Support Aussie Pythons & Snakes Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Fuscus

Almost Legendary
Joined
Sep 17, 2003
Messages
7,897
Reaction score
5
Location
In the ironically named sunshine coast, surrounded
from http://www.gcbulletin.com.au/
Snake bites walker
18Mar06

A CANADIAN tourist was bitten on the back of her left calf by a 50cm yellow-faced whip snake yesterday while on her first bushwalk in Australia near O'Reilly's Guesthouse.

Cherry Robinson, 60, from Toronto, was in a stable condition in the Gold Coast Hospital last night after being airlifted from O'Reillys by the RACQ CareFlight helicopter late yesterday morning.

She was given antivenene and admitted as a precaution.

Ms Robinson said she was returning from the bushwalk with her sister Sheila yesterday morning.

"I was on the trail when I suddenly felt something brush my leg and I looked down and there was this snake coiled on the ground beside me," said Ms Robinson, who began her guesthouse stay on Thursday.

"I pulled my leg away quickly and the snake jumped up and bit me on the back of my left leg. I know I screamed.

"It quickly moved off the path. It seemed angry and was moving around a lot.

"It had been a lovely walk. The birds out there are fantastic and so are the snakes I guess, so long as they are not close to you.

"But I'll be back it was very beautiful. I also want to thank the CareFlight guys. They have been wonderful."

The yellow-faced whip snake is only weakly venomous. It is rare for them to attack unless someone was trying to pick them up.

O'Reilly's managing director Shane O'Reilly said the whip snake was fidgety and usually fairly harmless.

"We used to play with them when we were kids and they would only pretend to have a go at us," he said.

"We are lucky that the snakes we have here are mostly not aggressive."

Mr O'Reilly said he drove Ms Robinson's sister to the Gold Coast Hospital to see how Cherry was fairing.

"On the way down Sheila told me she tried to suck the blood and venom out of her sister's wound and would have cut the area if she had a knife, because she had read in Canada years ago that this was the right thing to do," he said.

"I told her that no one had used that method in Australia for about 40 years. Fortunately, she's OK too."

Gold Coast snake catcher Tony Harrison, who has been bitten by a yellow-faced whip snake, said the reptile's bite was 'unbelievably painful'.

"It is like slowly immersing your arm in boiling water and not being able to remove it," he said.

It was the second snake-bite case at O'Reillys this year.

They had a photo of a snake in the paper and much to my surprise, it was a YF whip snake
 
[/quote]They had a photo of a snake in the paper and much to my surprise, it was a YF whip snake[/quote]

You're just playing with our heads...that'd never happen ;)
 
No offenceto the person bitten but i didn't think Yellow Faced Whip Snake bites hurt that much. When i got bitten by one it felt more like a bee sting and i ended up with a slight pimply looking thing on my finger. Didn't think they were that bad going by my own experience with them.

Simone
 
It depends on whether or not you're allergic to the venom...and whether or not you've been bitten by them (or black faced whipsnakes) before.
 
Not to mention the fact that Simone's bite may have been a warning or "dry" bite. I'e heard of people being bitten by them and the pain lasting for up to 2 weeks.
Obviously there are lots of reason why bites are different for everyone.
 
The bite i copped from a whipsnake was definately not a dry bite Kris. I'm one of those people that has a worse reaction than usual when i get bitten or stung by anything. All i am saying is that i have never heard of anyone needing antivenom for a yellow faced whip snake bite, i always presumed they weren't that bad.

Simone.
 
First of all, I just woke up and saw the typo from before....should have said black whip snake not black faced whip snake.....mental note not to let the girl near the computer til she's slept.

Simone, sorry bout the mixup, Kris and I read "No offenceto the person bitten but i didn't think Yellow Faced Whip Snake bites hurt that much" and took it literally, didn't realise you were talking about anti-venene. Our mistake, no harm no foul :D

While we've heard of people having extremely painful reactions to whip snake bites before we were surprised ourselves that they had administered anti-venene as a precaution. Always thought that they waited for you to get sick before administering it since the anti-venene alone can make you quite ill.

Sounds like you got very lucky there, since your reactions to bites and such are usually on the more extreme side.

Cheers, Kris and Kersten.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Back
Top