Friday, February 17, 2012

Briton bitten 'down under' by deadly Australian snake while answering call of nature

A British man was bitten "down under" by a killer snake while answering a call of nature in the Australian bush. The reptile sunk its fangs into Jackson Scott's testicle as he squatted in the dark.

But when he begged best mate Roddy Andrews to suck the venom out, his friend refused. Instead he drove Jackson on a 40-minute life-or-death dash to Hobart, Tasmania, where doctors gave him an antidote to the deadly tiger snake poison.



Jackson, 29, of Glasgow, said: "I went into the garden at four in the morning after a night in the pub to save flushing the toilet because water is precious in the outback. Just as I finished and was about to tuck everything safely away, it bit me. I had my pants around my knees when I hobbled into Roddy's bedroom. My heart was racing and I was hallucinating.

"Needless to say, Rod was not of a mind to suck out the poison." Jackson, starting a year's working holiday at the remote farm, added: "The doctors and nurses were very professional. They didn't take the mickey out of me being bitten on my wedding tackle."

1 comment:

terrence said...

A quote from Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope, "Eventually all aspects of the suction method, not just cauterization, fell into official disfavor. True, experiments with radioactively tagged venom showed suction could remove more than 50 percent of the poison if done within three minutes. But other research found that as a practical matter suction produced no demonstrable improvement and often made matters worse." It is a MYTH that you can help by sucking out snake bite poison.