ZCZC
BFF-25
AUSTRALIA-ANIMAL-SNAKE
Nurse survives deadly Australia snake bite using training
SYDNEY, June 10, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – An Australian nurse has spoken about how
he survived a bite from one of the world’s deadliest snakes by using medical
training to instruct his rescuers as he passed in and out of consciousness.
Christian Wright, 33, was bitten on his foot by a brown snake at the bottom
of a gorge in a remote part of Karijini National Park some 1,400 kilometres
(870 miles) north of Perth in Western Australia last month.
“I looked at my foot, there was no puncture marks. No blood, no swelling,
no nothing,” Wright told commercial broadcaster Channel Seven Saturday.
“I started losing my vision. I knew I was going to pass out.”
The hospital midwife shouted to his friend Alex Chia, who caught him as he
passed out.
“His eyes were rolling back in his head, he was shaking and sweating, and
then he went totally limp and heavy,” Chia told The West Australian
newspaper.
“We were down a deep gorge, 30 metres (100 feet) tall, there was no one in
sight. The hardest part was being in front of his lifeless body.”
A nearby Austrian couple heard their cries for help and called emergency
services with their satellite phone as they tended to Wright’s leg using his
own instructions.
“I was just coming and going. I started getting really agitated as the
neurotoxins started getting to my head, I was writhing all over the place and
yelling out from the pain in my head,” Wright told The West Australian.
A ranger was the first to arrive at the scene, followed by paramedics and
other rescuers.
But Wright’s ordeal was not yet over, with the ranger having to enlist the
help of 20 nearby tourists to carry the nurse out of the challenging terrain
on a stretcher while keeping his head above his legs.
It took more than an hour to carry him to an ambulance before he was driven
to a hospital some 75 kilometres away and given anti-venom to counter the
poison.
Brown snakes, whose bite is often painless, are known as nervous reptiles
that strike with little hesitation.
Deaths from bites are rare despite Australia being home to 20 of the
world’s 25 most venomous snakes.
According to official estimates there are about 3,000 snakebite cases in
Australia every year, with 300-500 needing anti-venom treatment. Only an
average of two a year prove fatal.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1030 hrs