Yet Another Snake Bite Fatality

[nuthn2do]

So true ssssnakeman, I always do my best to assist with education and media but it's not something the small community needs to be reminded about at the moment.
A couple of years ago i did a TV news spot on living with snakes (with no herps in sight) and they edited in a clip of a very peed off eastern brown repeatedly striking at the camera. This snake was filmed 3 years before.
What chance have we got.

 

[Paliadon]

Nasty thing to happen. Poor girl. Hope the family is dealing with it alright.

RIP

 

[rubydimond]

Why don't the papers print how to avoid snake bites...?

How do you get 9 year olds to avoid browns? What can you do?

I realise browns are quite defensive and the media write about them as though they're agressive and actively pursue people who disturb them.

But what do I tell my daughter if she sees a snake (regardless of the fact if it is a brown or a spotted python...

When I saw a program on the browns they showed it actively pursuing a possible attacker. It struck out 10 or 15 times.

What, if anything, could have the parents done? Could have they applied a pressure bandage (maybe they did)? Would it have helped?

It is very sad and I feel for these parents. It has been a bad year for snakes and bitees. And I do think some of this can be attributed to the drought and the snake having to go more urban in search of food.

this is just my personal experience but on my dads farm i grew up on, once a year he would fllod the property via the dam (long gone the days it actualy rained). the first leason i remember him telling me was it i saw a brown copperhead or red bell (we get all three) i was to stand still and they would turn and go the other way. that worked every time unless i was to accadently step on one not fun ) in that case run because they witt attack but not because there agesive but because they have been threatend. remember all they know is hunt kill eat populat and protect thy self.

 

[OdessaStud]

this is just my personal experience but on my dads farm i grew up on, once a year he would fllod the property via the dam (long gone the days it actualy rained). the first leason i remember him telling me was it i saw a brown copperhead or red bell (we get all three) i was to stand still and they would turn and go the other way. that worked every time unless i was to accadently step on one not fun ) in that case run because they witt attack but not because there agesive but because they have been threatend. remember all they know is hunt kill eat populat and protect thy self.

Finally a real story of the real thing,snakes are hunters,breeders and will protect themselves, you step on them or harrass them they will bite as I would,so sorry for the parents of this child but also so sorry for the many snakes that will now be killed because of what has happened.The brown snake that intruded on my mice was relocated it wasnt his fault he found a feed in the wrong place?well in my opinion he was in the wrong place, but in his opinion he found snake heaven not his fault, we live with them so we must also adapt and learn JMO

 

[kullafullsnake]

yeah to a kid snake looks so colourful and friendly and probably playfull as we all know if the kids lucky if the kid is the snake will take off when tried to be patted but if it was trodden on not alot of hope of no confrontation,im going to teach my kids not to ever touch a snake outside of our house but instead to tell mum or dad where they seen the snake and what colour was he ect

 

[*~PreciousDiamonds*~]

Oh that is sad. R.I.P little one, I feel so much for the family, I don't know how I would react if my 9year old son passed away.

I think snake bite treatment should be taught in schools with sex and drug education.

 

[Aslan]

What hasn't been widely publicised is that the recent snake bites by Browns in Sydney have primarily been VERY Juvenile Browns - I was recently shown a very young brown at the MacHerps meeting and in the wild I would never have imagined it was an Eastern Brown...to me it looked quite similar to a whip snake but just had some nice black banding...

Perhaps some further media attention should be placed around educating people that the 15cm striped snake in the park isn't a harmless little thing but a potentially deadly Juvenile Eastern Brown...I was blown away by the difference in appearance and the size at which they are still deadly...