lederhosen

One thing you've probably noticed about Australians is that we like to impress people by boasting about how deadly our snakes are. At the risk of being labelled un-Australian, I feel obliged to mention that this behaviour is not entirely honest. It's not that the snakes aren't deadly - while there's some scientific wrangling about the exact LD₅₀ numbers involved, there's certainly no argument that Australia has lots of snakes with extraordinarily toxic venom.

No, the dishonesty lies in the implication that these snakes make Australia a terribly dangerous place to live (and, thus, that we are all tremendously brave for not packing up and fleeing to Ireland). In fact, across the whole country, snakes kill an average of about three people a year. Part of that is due to the work of some very talented scientists, like the late Struan Sutherland and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory, in developing effective antivenines, but a big part of it is that snakes simply don't have much interest in biting humans. When they do, they often deliver a 'dry bite', without injecting venom, as a warning. (Venom is expensive to produce - why waste it on something you can't eat?)

So, how *do* people get bitten?

This is transcribed from a clipping from a Northern Territory paper; I've seen the clipping but don't know which paper it was:

A Darwin man told yesterday how his left arm was amputated after being bitten nine times by a deadly snake. Gordon Lyons said he almost died after his heart stopped three times on the operating table at Royal Darwin Hospital.

He spent seven weeks in a coma and was kept alive with a dialysis machine and a ventilator after a king brown bit his left arm two months ago.

Mr Lyons, who has not regained movement in his legs, said doctors revived him three times on the operating table. He said: "I'm lucky to be here right now." But I still can't believe my arm's been chopped off just for one snake. I still have my life and I guess that's the most important thing."

Mr Lyons said he was bitten by the snake, considered to be one of the most venomous, after he picked it up from the side of the road near Litchfield. Mr Lyons, who admitted he was drunk at the time, said he and a mate had been driving from Mandorah to Darwin when they saw it.

He said: "I remembered the guys at Mandorah Pub wanted something to put in their huge fish tank. "But I made the stupid mistake of grabbing it with my left hand because I was holding a beer in my right one. I had its head in my hand but it got loose and grabbed the web of my left hand - its fangs were that big it ripped my hand open.

"I tore it off me and put it in a plastic bag and threw it in the back of the car. For some stupid reason, I stuck my hand back in the bag, and it must have smelled blood, and it bit me another eight times."

Mr Lyons said he started vomiting and suffering diarrhoea "about three seconds later". He said: "My mate was trying to keep me awake by whacking me in the head and pouring beer on me."

Mr Lyons said his last memory was passing out, covered in blood, at the Noonamah Hotel moments before being taken by ambulance to the Royal Darwin Hospital.

RDH specialist physician Bart Currie said the venom had caused severe damage to Mr Lyons' muscles, which led to his left arm turning black and becoming "dead". Mr Currie said: "Of all the snake bites in Australia I'm aware of, this man is the sickest to have ever survived.


Any questions?