SEVEN MONTHS IN HOSPITAL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16339, 13 May 1927, Page 12

SEVEN MONTHS IN HOSPITAL

RESULT OF SNAKE BITE

SYDNEY, April 29,

The boy victim of what is stated to be I lie record long illness resulting from snake bite is still in hospital, seven months after he was bitten. He is Kenneth Hammond, 13, and though lie lias lost his right :u;m he is continuing bis school studies and is learning to write with his left hand. Young Hammond was bitten below the right elbow. He was attending to a number of guinea pigs which were his pets, and putting his right arm in their hutch he felt a smart sting, which made him howl with pain. He thought i hrt he had caught his arm on a nail, but a snake which crawled out of the hutch told him what had caused the sting. Hammond’s father cut the wound with a razor, applied Condy’s crystals, and put on a ligature, tho recognised treatment for snake bite. He then rushed the lad to hospital, but despite the rapid treatment gangrene set in. Two of the. boy’s fingers dropped off ami the doctor amputated the hand. A further amputation was later found necessary.

.lust before the boy was bitten, his dog also suffered, the boy scarified the wound and bathed it with Condy’s crvstals. The dog crawled away under the house, and did not reappear for a fortnight. ■ When he did he. was a skeleton. He began .to take peculiar fits, and then was sent away to Sydney for treatment. This was successful, and the boy in hospital at Lismore is eagerly awaiting the day when he and the dog will be able to track the pugnacious snake to its lair and kill it.