SNAKE MENACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22352, 25 February 1936, Page 6

SNAKE MENACE

[PERILS OF THE BUSH MAN DISTURBS DEATH ADDER NARtfOW ESCAPE FROM BITE [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY. Feb. 17 One of the perils of the Australian bush'in summer, unknown in New Zealand, is the possibility of snakebite. Many Australian snakes are venomous, and bush workers, picnickers, and people living near scrub are always on the . alert. Never a summer passes without a number of snakebite fatalities, and n still greater number of exciting encounters with snakes. Self-reliance, presence of mind, and calmness are the three traits of character requisite on such occasions. Encounters with snakes oven in Syd-ney-suburbs are not rare. A day or two ago, Mr. R. H. Patterson, a council parks officer, walking in the bush at St. Ives, a semi-rural area, trod on the head of a death adder, 32in. long. When he saw where his foot was resting, Mr. Patterson leapt three feet away, escaping narrowly a bite from the most venomous snake species in Australia. He ,was walking through thq bush, in rough country near the junction of a creek with an arm of Middle Harbour, with Mr. J. A. Drummond, parks overseer, and. had paused at the foot of an uncommonly fine red gum to admire the tree. "Hideous-looking Body" " I felt my foot resting on something 'and I looked down," said Mr. Patterson.' " I saw a hideous-looking reddish body, nearly three feet long—and I jumped. The adder roused itself. Apparently it had been asleep. What saved me was that I had practically my full 12 stone weight on its head. Owing to a war..injury to my left leg, I throw my weight ou my right foot, which was on its head. Mr. Drummond had a stick. Before he could tackle the adder, it crawled off toward a shrub. Then it stopped and waited for our attack. When he hit it with the stick, it curled over and struck at the stick. When the adder was killed, four young were found in its body." Mr. J. Kinghorn, of the Australian Museum, probably the leading scientific authority on snakes, said that the death adder was one of the largest seen at the museum, though there were records of larger ones. It could be regarded as tho most deadly snake in Australia, as the proportion of deaths to bites was about half, the venom being ejected through fangs or teeth specially provided for the purpose. Doctor's Ordeal Dr. R. W. Gibson, of Ceduna, Eyre Peninsula, a lonely part of South Australia, was less fortunate than Mr. Patterson. He was bitten on an ankle as he was stepping out of his car to enter his front gate. He immediately ran to his surgery and applied a tourniquet and treated the bite, but the effect of the venom was so quick that he had to be taken to hospital, where he received attention from the matron and staff. For three hours his condition was critical, and he suffered intense agony. Owing to the suddenness of his collapse, it is almost certain that he was bitten by a death adder. The next morning Dr. Gibson felt relieved and performed an operation on a patient at the hospital, but that afternoon he suffered a relapse^and again became a patient in the hospital, although his condition •was not critical.