Hockey player dies after snake bite at training

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

I put this in survival forum, hope it fits.

The reason is an ounce of prevention can prevent a pound of pain, or in this case... DEATH

It happened in Australia..

STORY HERE

A Darwin hockey player has died after a snake bit him on the finger at a training session.

Paramedics were called to the hockey complex in the suburb of Marrara on Tuesday night following reports that a player had collapsed and lost consciousness

It is believed Karl Berry, 26, had picked up a snake at an office near the training field and thrown it into nearby bushes

BREAK

Darwin snake catcher Chris Peberty says a bite from a western brown snake can easily not be noticed because it doesn't hurt.

A large part of survival, or surviving is to KNOW what not to do, or get near, or not to mess around with.

SNAKES are a real good thing to leave the heck ALONE, and don't muck around with them!!! Some snakes even if you are 110% certain they are not venomous, they can still carry nasty germs that if they bite you, can create one very nasty infection.

This was a 26 yr old athlete in prime condition! Granted running 2 km before showing symptoms did NOT help the poor bugger much either!!

Australia has a whole bunch of really bad snakes, and they look pretty innocent really. I have seen a few of the brown snakes, and they look and act pretty "tame". But I sure as heck DO NOT pick up snakes! Nor do I piss em off with a stick...

He got bit by a Western Brown.. about 1.5 times more deadly than a cobra! I'll bet it was a real small one too.

As the article says.. YOU DIE IF YOU DON'T GET TREATMENT...period.

My wife has seen a Logan River Brown, prowling around her work site. They have a warning sign out for the patients there. Like one of those "danger, wet floors" signs, but this one says DANGER 5 FOOT RUSSELL BROWN SEEN IN AREA. Logan River Browns are one of the most poisonous kinds of brown snakes too..A 5 footer could inject a butt load of poison in you. They are almost as poisonous as the western brown this 26 yr old got bit by.

The darn thing doesn't stick around long enough for them to get animal control to remove it. It just shows up from under a bush or something every other day or so.. or couple times a day.

You aren't allowed to kill em, against the law. And to try and gather it up without the right equipment and training, well you will just piss it off, and then it WILL bite you..or try to..they can move QUITE fast too.

Moral of the sad story, LEAVE SNAKES ALONE..don't even try to pick one up, even if it is a baby only 6 inches or so long!

Pravdaseeker

reply to post by pravdaseeker


Perfect place for it my friend

This is, sadly, a perfect example of what NOT to do as far as survival goes

We do see this from time to time and it is tragic, yet something all of the rest of us can learn from

Do you have any pictures of that kind of snake?

reply to post by semperfortis


HELLO BROTHER!!!

Wow, well I had a reply all set for you and it got lost in electronic land..lol Here we go again 2nd try.

Here are two links to western brown snake images.







As you can see two completely different looking snakes right?

Source for images

It is like the Western Diamondback rattler back in the states. Other than the common black and white bands right before the rattlers begin, they can be almost ANY color or pattern before the coontail.

Same way with these dang brown snakes!! Although most have SOME SORT of darker patch on their heads, up to including a BLACK head patch. Most have some sort of dark patch, or darker head than the rest of the body.

But as you can see by the one image at the links above, NOT necessarily so! That is why I give these snakes in Australia a very wide berth! ANY SNAKE down here. Besides, they are ALL protected, so whopping one with a stick could make for an expensive visit to the local judge if someone sees you whopping it.

The odds are no matter what kind it REALLY is, it is poisonous. So just don't!

Too much of a retard to post a picture within the thread here, sorry my friend. Tried before and gave myself a temporal lobe haemorrhage or something like that.

Some snakes down here like a red belly are pretty hard to mis-identify. They all are creepy little buggers to me.
Never did understand these nutters who JUST GOTTA have a snake for a pet... something WRONG with them I think..lmao!

I have SO MUCH to learn about my new country... and have subscribed to this forum for any survival stuff.

Was thinking one of these days when I get rich and famous..lol, I will go on one of those bush walks with a Indigenous Native... Aborigine type guy.. and learn from him.. They have excursions along those lines, but they aren't cheap.

Anyhow, great to communicate with you, hope those links help.

Pravdaseeker

reply to post by pravdaseeker


If you want to learn some neat stuff, just watch the Bush Tucker Man series.....I think you can find most of them on youtube.

reply to post by pravdaseeker

G'day mate! Fancy seeing you here!
Just thought I'd drop by and leave you with this ... Crikey !!!

It happened in Australia..

And, we can stop right there....

Want to survive? Don't go to AUSTRALIA!

Seriously, the top 10 most deadliest animals on any list, and probably EIGHT of the 10 will be found in Australia. Heck, stepping on a fish there can kill you in seconds.....

Originally posted by Gazrok

It happened in Australia..

And, we can stop right there....

Want to survive? Don't go to AUSTRALIA!

Seriously, the top 10 most deadliest animals on any list, and probably EIGHT of the 10 will be found in Australia. Heck, stepping on a fish there can kill you in seconds.....

What? Nah!!

Where's your sense of adventure? Where I live; drop bears are a fun diversion.

It's catching great whites off the beach that gets the juices flowing. Or surfing with them.

Some of the snakes we use as draught stoppers on our doors, others we shoo away with our thongs
(no... flip-flops ) only because they can kill you.

The spiders the size of your face are generally harmless. It's the nasty looking black ones that you
find staring at you on your bedroom wall in the morning ( or you touch during the night only to fail to wake in
the morning ) that offer the greatest concern.

You just have to look at it as sport. We love sport down in these parts, as I know our friends in the USA do.
So are you up for some Aussie sport ??

We would love to have you as our guest / participant ...

reply to post by Timely


I'm not saying I wouldn't like to visit, but to go around playing with the wildlife of Australia is kind of like juggling with nitro....you're just tempting fate.

Deadliest snakes? Australia
Deadliest fish? Australia
Deadliest sharks? Australia
etc., etc., etc.

I've roamed the wilds of Kodiak, Alaska and played with Kodiak bears, and shaken many a scorpion out of my boots in Saudi Arabia, but I can tell you I will NEVER go into the ocean around Australia, hehe....

reply to post by Gazrok

Come down for a holiday we have rivers too. You can enjoy boating, fishing, kayaking, swimming etc.

You just have to keep an eye out for crocs and bullsharks, but you don't see many. It's the leeches and eels that will annoy you most. Oh, the mozzies too!

The barbie and frothies at the end of the day make it well worth your time though.

C'mon man! I survived the mountain lions and rattle snakes in the Hollywood hills; this is a walk in the park.

( not to mention Venice beach after dark ) lol.

reply to post by Timely


It's on our bucket list (trip to Australia)...hope we get to someday. Just more difficult for us to get away these days, too much anchoring us down.

reply to post by Gazrok

Do it while you can .

I call our resident Huntsman "Bob". Bob is brilliant, he manages to be in a different place every morning ready to scare the living bejesus out of me when I lift the tea towel, or pick up the remote, or pull the visor down in my car.....

I love Bob.

reply to post by Kryties


Mate, had a few "Bobs". They work as mozzie control, then ultimately fail when they drop on you un-announced
usually in the dark ...

Say no more.

ETA; The "spider dance" is the usual cause of death for "Bob"

( Gotta hate 'em in the car though!! )

reply to post by Timely


Haha Definitely, I loved Australia, i spent about 3 months in and around NSW, bris....and the beaches and diving AWW MAN....wonderful

Im from Texas and it reminded me a lot of there , australia as a whole i mean, cause everythings either stickly, prickly, has fangs, or venom, or generally is just scary lookin.......

Probably the only other country that I would actually move to permanently.......love it there......

And your right about the spiders, the lil ones are the scary ones you cant see lol........

Also the bats, I was out one night, underneath a lamp light, and heard this god awful sound like batman was swooping down on me........

Close enough, the friggin bats there are HUGE! they were coming in and taking bugs from the lights!

reply to post by Timely


Hello Timely, ATS Readers, Writers,

Wow, hello again there..

I always knew that poor bloke was crazy. That video proves it. Sad to say, but I always figured his luck would run out someday. Poor bloke..

You are a nutter Timely..lol Crack me up! Heck the blue bottles are bad enough, they stain the beaches too.

Surfing with great whites, oh yeah..lol... NEVER! My mate used to do it all the time! He sorta quit surfing when his surfing partner got his kidney ripped out by the surfboard fin.. Them things are razor sharp! Now he just makes them for sale. Hand made wooden veneer boards.. GORGEOUS! Sells them down around the Gold Coast Surf shops. Besides him being over 60 kind of slowed him down a bit too.

I laughed nervously at some of the posts further down in the thread.. about huntsman spiders! HA! They give me the creeps too! Especially when they surprise you.. There was one about the size of my palm, I was headed out the back door to go down the stairs to get some laundry..The screen door closes a bit and there about 5 inches from my face is this huge bugger Huntsman!! Eating a good size spider and spitting chunks of it out! We meet each others glare my 2 eyes to his 8 or ten, or however many they got, but I saw everyone of them staring at me!

Then the %^*$%* started shaking and vibrating like he was gonna jump on me!! Well, my arse chickened out!! LMAO! I ALMOST screamed like a girl.. but I moved down the stairs like Fred Estaire man!

AH YES, the LEECHES!! Great friendly little buggers there too...Since I live in a rainforest, I have had a few pints removed by them already...ONE trip without bushmans spray was enough to learn my lessons!! HOLY CRAP mate... you bleed forever after the damn things let go.. My wife had 4 on one foot.. thought she was gonna need a transfusion after that trip. I TOLD HER we weren't dressed for the trip in the forest, but NOOOOooooo she had to go!

She LOVES bushmans spray now..lol.

Dang near lost one of my dogs to those pesky paralysis ticks too!! Fricking $500 vet bill... arggh.

My wife and I just LOVE the bushwalks, despite the critters you run into sometimes, gotta get her a camera too though...LOL. When I get the bucks to do it.. We have taken some awesome photos together.

I gotta teach her to QUIT grabbing the vines for hand holds ...She always manages to shake some creepy thing down on me or her when she does it! And even if she doesn't manage to shake something loose, you think something fell on you anyhow..One time she grabbed one and a BIG palm frond came down right behind me!

Dang near left a brown streak in the trail..LMAO! I thought Yowie had my arse for sure for a nanosecond! Maybe it was one of them dropbears! HA! Under the canopy, so dark the camera almost wont take a picture unless a shutter speed of 1 second or so is dialled in. Bright sunny day, but really dark under it all. Werewolves and vampire territory.. spooky stuff.

WE saw some red legged pademelons this last outing. They are a little kangaroo looking critter that lives where there is lots of rocks. Cagey buggers, HARD to get a picture of, but we finally got a partial picture of one.

Garth It will be in my next OZ update for folks. Along with a pretty big goanna lizard. And a Bower bird.

Great scary input to the thread.. just HAD to remind me didn't you all!! Argghhh.

Thanks folks..

Pravdaseeker

Originally posted by Timely

The spiders the size of your face are generally harmless. It's the nasty looking black ones that you
find staring at you on your bedroom wall in the morning ( or you touch during the night only to fail to wake in
the morning ) that offer the greatest concern.

Holy Sheet.. I'm scared of ones that are the size of a fifty pence piece. Had one that big a few years ago, even threw the cat at it, she bricked it aswell

Originally posted by pravdaseeker
they can still carry nasty germs that if they bite you, can create one very nasty infection.

A friend of mine was bitten on the hand by a water moccasin, and in the time that it took to get him to the hospital the flesh in his finger was necrotic and dead. He had to have his finger amputated.

People often are not aware of that little danger involving snakebites, as they are always more worried about the venom.

reply to post by defcon5


The venom of the water moccasin does have necrosis as a possible effect. It is a tissue damaging poison.

Originally posted by Gazrok
but I can tell you I will NEVER go into the ocean around Australia,

Funny that, since 1791 there have been 216 fatalities in Australia due to sharks, in the USA in 2010 there was about 30,000 deaths due to murder or suicide by guns... so in 1 week in 2010 there were more suicides or murders by guns in the USA than the number of people killed by sharks in 222 years in Australia!

I manged to receive a snake bite from a copperhead snake, here in the US. These bites are rarely fatal but I will recommend avoiding such bites. Quite painful for a couple of weeks due to swelling.