DAILY NEWS (Durban, S Africa) 08 November 05 Schoolboy survives lethal snake bite (Barbara Cole)
A 15-year-old Durban schoolboy has survived an encounter with a deadly three metre black mamba.
But Sibusiso Mseswa would have died if his school had not reacted quickly and immediately called in an ambulance, whose crew then brought in a helicopter to fly him to hospital.
“You’ve only got 20 minutes before you stop breathing,” said paramedic Asogan Edward, who was on board the Red Cross Air Mercy helicopter – which is contracted to the provincial health authority – which flew the boy to Addington Hospital.
The drama unfolded at Blackburn Primary School in Mount Edgecombe, when Sibusiso was playing soccer.
Although the grass was “quite short”, Sibusiso did not see the snake and stood on it. He was bitten on the sole of the foot.
“The school immediately called an ambulance from Phoenix and it got to the school within seven minutes,” said Edward.
Then, while paramedics applied a tourniquet to prevent the blood circulating around his body, they called in the helicopter, which took 10 minutes to get there from its base at Durban International Airport.
By then, a fellow pupil had killed the snake with a stone. Although Sibusiso had some difficulty breathing as a result of the attack, he was still conscious.
The patient was given anti-venom at Addington and is now in the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit in a stable condition.
Schoolboy survives lethal snake bite