Here's the good word, folks:
FIRSTLY: Don't touch snakes. Walk away a little and observe them if you want, but don't annoy them. Snakes can only crawl as fast as we can walk, although often we think otherwise. What they can do is strike faster than we can see, over their body length. This is very impressive to see. If you are within a body length of many snakes, they can strike and retract before you see it. Stay out of this critical strike range and you are safe. Some snakebites are hardly, or not even felt until afterwards.
Many snake bites do not result in envenoming. The rate of envenoming varies depending on the species of snake. Death Adders, for example, are notorious "dry-biters", they do not envenomate all the time, even though they have long fangs and sink them in deep. Brown snakes have tiny, tiny fangs (2mm) and often envenomate. All snakes have over 100 razor sharp teeth, these will leave bigger wounds than the fangs in many cases. You will not have a bite wound which looks like two fang punctures. It will look like a graze of sorts, more than likely.
Whether envenoming has occurred cannot be immediately determined when the patient presents. This means all suspected snake bites must be triaged as a medical emergency and observed for a sufficient period of time in a hospital with adequate supplies of antivenom and laboratory facilities. Immediate expert advice can be obtained from the Poisons Information Centre network (phone 13 11 26).
First aid:
The bite site should not be washed so that the area can be swabbed for venom detection. Pressure immobilisation is the recommended first aid treatment for all snake bites.
A broad (15 cm) bandage is applied at the same pressure as for a sprained ankle over the entire limb. The patient must then remain completely immobilised, not just the bitten limb. For bites on areas other than limbs the patient should be immobilised to slow the spread of venom.
If you have no bandage, use strips of cloth or whole items of clothing.
Pressure immobilisation should only be removed once the patient is in a hospital stocked with antivenom. If the patient is envenomed, pressure immobilisation can be removed once antivenom therapy has commenced. If the patient has no clinical or laboratory signs of envenoming, the bandage can be removed if antivenom and resuscitation equipment are available.
Accurate, up to date advice and information is available at these sites:
http://www.avru.org/firstaid/firstaid_snake.html
http://www.usyd.edu.au/anaes/venom/snakebite.html
http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/29/5/125/9/
PLEASE LEAVE SNAKES ALONE, OBSERVE AND ENJOY THEM, DON'T FEAR THEM, AND YOU WILL NOT BE BITTEN (unless very, very unlucky
).
