Australian hospitals ask bite victims to stop bringing in the snakes that bit them

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/22/australian-hospitals-ask-bite-victims-to-stop-bringing-in-the-snakes-that-bit-them.html

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What about the horse they rode in on?

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If I brought a snek that bit me - it wouldn’t still be alive.

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People suffering from alcohol poisoning are also asked not to bring in the hair of the dog that bit them.

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Oh we’ve ALWAYS told people this. Spiders too, tho they’re more easily contained. I remember being taught this in first aid training in primary school.

As well as obviously “don’t risk getting more bites, you might have had a dry bite the first time and also more venom is bad”, there’s the possibility that you didn’t kill the snek, just stunned it.

If I’m not mistaken, most snakes in Aus are covered by like, one or two antivenoms so you honestly just don’t need to know what sort of snake to administer treatment.

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Yup - there’s a polyvalent one for general use across most of the country, except for Victoria and Tasmania, where the mix only includes tiger snake and brown snake antivenom.

https://www.nps.org.au/medicine-finder/polyvalent-snake-antivenom-concentrate-for-infusion

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It’s times like this when I find myself asking ‘can Australia get any more adorable?’

Answer: of course - they have Bluey.

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Deaths are very rare.

HAH! Transparent Aussie Dept. of Tourism propaganda. Everyone knows that every thing in Australia wants you dead and works 20 hours a day to make it happen. Most of the “population” of the country was replaced by Disney Imagineering animatronics decades ago.

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Bringing the snake that bit you to the hospital is the most Australian thing I can imagine

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More a case of confirmation bias. Australia killed off all the weak people decades ago and only us superior specimens are still alive to shrug off such small annoyances as being bitten by snakes/spiders/sharks/stonefish/insects/etc :stuck_out_tongue:

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We always warn tourists about the venoumous stuff, but sometimes we forget to warn them about all the other animals that might have a go.
Magpies will attack during springtime. Eyes have been lost.
Kangaroos will attack if cornered. They punch and kick. Hard.
Dingoes will definitely go for a small child if they can.
Cassowaries are rare, but capable of disembowelling with their talons.
Crocodiles make swimming in the tropics a very bad idea. Multiple people are taken every year by big crocs.
Even emus are pretty scary up close. Relatively fearless.
Goannas can grow over 2 meters long, and have been known to mistake people for trees, and run up them. Big claws. So, keep moving.

And lets not forget the flora. Its nearly all some combination of spiky, stingy, toxic or flammable.
Whats that? A nice patch of lawn?
Keep your shoes sunshine. Its probably full of Bindies. They are tiny little spiked seeds, like little wooden caltrops that dig into your feet with each step you take.
Even the rocks are harsh and spiky. None of those smooth rounded Northern hemisphere rocks, covered in moss.
And blasting over it all is the unique Australian sunlight. Its like northen sunlight turned up to 11.
Less ozone means more UV.

Look forward to seeing you :grinning:

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When I was new in the country, I was talking about the tropics and swimming or scuba diving. The locals corrected that notion.
“Bad idea.”
“Why? Are there sharks?”
“Nah, the crocs ate them.”

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Crocodiles have barely evolved since the dinosaur ages.
They are very scary and they hunt humans.
Also a protected species.
And the baby ones, are very cute.

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I always suspected Steve Irwin wasn’t really Australian.

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Can confirm. I saw a baby croc at the reptile park in Gosford. Blew my mind when he said “This one’s a female. We know, because we incubated the egg at such-and-such temperature. If we wanted a male croc, we would’ve used a temperature of something-else.”

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Did you get the ‘Visit Australia’ advertising contract?

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