THE MERCURY (Hobart, Australia) 18 January 07 Lizard CPR saves the day (Kane Young)
Ever given a blue-tongue lizard mouth-to-mouth -- or mouth-to-nose -- resuscitation?
Reptile Rescue volunteer Camille Gray and her boyfriend Jeremy Xepapas have. They revived a near-drowned lizard on Tuesday afternoon at Geilston Bay.
Camille, who is seven months pregnant, and Jeremy had spent the past few days nursing a juvenile male blue-tongue back to health and decided on Tuesday to return him to the wild.
"We released him and then three hours later I had a bad feeling about it, so we went back and he was in the creek," Camille, 26, said.
Jeremy fished the lizard out and started stimulating its heart and forcing water out of its mouth as Camille rang Reptile Rescue co-ordinator Aaron Bird for advice.
"I was convinced that he was a goner, but Camille kept saying `No, he's alive'," Jeremy said. "I put my hand over the sides of its mouth and gave it a quick burst (of air) up its nose."
He may take a couple of days to get over his watery ordeal, but the lizard looks like making a full recovery.
"We got him home and thought he'd die, but he's eaten a quarter of a can of cat food so he's fine," Camille said.
Few Tasmanians are likely to have to administer lizard CPR but many will come across lizards or snakes in their yards this summer.
Mr Bird said Reptile Rescue had received about 300 calls in the past six weeks.
"We got about 500 for the whole season last year and we've still got four months left so we're looking at double the amount of last year," he said.
About 90 per cent of those calls are about snakes, and Mr Bird offered a simple explanation for their recent forays into suburban yards.
"Seasonal rainfall -- there hasn't been any," he said.
"There's no water anywhere. If snakes don't go and look for water they'll die, they can't go without it.
"What little water there was about has evaporated with the bushfires."
Lizard CPR saves the day