NORTHERN STAR (Lismore, Australia) 13 February 08 Toddler gives mum and dad a fright with snake bite (Andy Parks)

Two-year-old Sebastian Stockdale was all smiles yesterday as he played in the children’s ward of Lismore Base Hospital, but he gave his parents a fright on Monday% fternoon when he told them he had been bitten by a snake.

Sebastian was playing outside their Bexhill home at five o’clock when he came inside and casually announced there was a snake near the front door. His mother asked him if he had been bitten and he said ‘yes’.

Luckily for Sebastian it seems to have been a dry bite because doctors were unable to find any traces of venom in his blood.

According to his father, Graeme Stockdale, Sebastian was kept in overnight and had three blood tests, because it can sometimes take up to 12 hours for the venom to take effect.

“He seems too happy,” Mr Stockdale said. “It’s a huge relief. We were pretty scared.”

Mr Stockdale went outside and saw the snake just three metres from their front door and killed it with the first thing he could get his hands on, a hammer. He said he wanted to be able to give the doctors a positive identification when they got to the hospital. It was a brown snake.

But according to WIRES reptile co-ordinator Michael McGrath, Mr Stockdale put himself in a very risky position.

“Ninety per cent of brown snake bites are people trying to pick them up or kill them,” he said.

Mr McGrath said there was no need to try and kill or identify a snake after a bite because doctors had venom detection kits which are used before an anti-venom is given.

http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3763482&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

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• AUS Press: Toddler snake bit - W von Papineäu, Fri Feb 15 12:30:31 2008