“Everyone who dies is someone who didn’t take the situation seriously,” says Greg Calvert, a Townsville-based consulting biologist who’s worked with snakes for five decades. Twenty of the 25 most venomous snakes on earth are native to Australia; a single bite from an Inland Taipan is toxic enough to kill 100 full-grown men. Calvert – who’s been bitten many times – attributes his survival to always following his own advice: “Do not muck around.”
Immobilise yourself immediately. Venom travels through the body in the lymphatic system, which operates via muscle movement, before entering the bloodstream. “People run around panicking, trying to identify the snake,” says Calvert. “Then they get bitten again, or someone else gets bitten, and, meanwhile, they’re pushing the venom around their body. Just lie down – make sure you’re not lying next to the snake – then don’t move at all. This is what Aboriginal people used to do. Sometimes they’d even bury the person in sand so they were completely still.”
Don’t wash the wound. “Doctors often swab the site to pinpoint the venom [and thus the anti-venom]; if you clean the wound, you’re destroying a diagnostic tool,” he says.
For bites on limbs, hands or feet, apply a broad compression bandage around the whole limb. Not too tight – the same tension as for a sprained ankle is about right. If you don’t have a bandage, any fabric is fine, especially if it has some stretch in it. For bites in other areas (on the bottom, for instance), do the best you can. “A boy was bitten on the head by a taipan, and they still managed to compress the wound,” says Calvert. “They used his T-shirt, from memory.” And call for help at the same time: “You can be on speakerphone to triple 0 while applying your compression bandage.”
Receiving appropriate first aid and medical help within a couple of hours means even the most venomous bite is “very survivable”, says Calvert.
Every year, up to 3000 people in Australia are bitten by snakes, but the country has one of the world’s lowest snakebite-death rates – an average of just two fatalities a year. Still, prevention is always better than cure.
“Snakes are cryptic animals,” explains Calvert. “I’ve never seen one chase a human – they just go about their business. If you see one, go inside and have a beer. And if you look outside and it’s still there, have a second beer.”
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