Grieving dad makes plea to cut snake deaths across Queensland - The Australian

Source: The Courier-Mail

THREE fatal snake bites in as many months in Queensland has driven a grieving father to call for change.

Stephen Leishman's son, Ashley, was bitten twice by an eastern brown snake on October 8, while he was moving a woodpile at a Miles property.

Emergency services went to the scene but the emergency helicopter was delayed at Toowoomba to refuel.

"Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for him that day," Mr Leishman said.

It took two hours to get the 26-year-old to hospital, a second ambulance meeting the first responder to provide extra treatment as ambulance crews worked to save his life.

"But if that second ambulance had the antivenene and had known it was a snake bite when they were called, they could have administered it then and maybe he'd still be around," Mr Leishman said.

Ashley, who lived with learning difficulties, was surrounded by his fiancee, Sarah, friends and family when he was taken off life support five days later in a Brisbane hospital.

Ashley's death was followed by Wilsons Plains man Colin Field, 80, who was bitten by what was believed to be a brown snake. He was taken to hospital on December 2 but died the next day.

In November, an Ergon Energy employee died almost instantly after being bitten by a coastal taipan in central Queensland.

Yeppoon crew leader Andrew Vaughan was in dense bushland when he was bitten.

Almost 800 people were admitted to Queensland's public hospitals over the past year after being bitten by a snake.

Mr Leishman has started a petition calling for ambulances to be equipped with antivenene.

"It might cost about $2000 for it to go into an ambulance but what price do you pay for a person's life?" he said.

But a Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said there were no moves to introduce antivenene to ambulances.

"As a general rule, no ambulance jurisdiction in Australia carries or administers snake antivenene or venom detection kits. This is due to the lack of reliability, such as storage temperature issues and expiration."

Queensland Health deputy director-general Dr Michael Cleary said that, in most cases, antivenene was specific to the type of snake.

"However, if the precise identity of the snake cannot be established, all hospitals also maintain stocks of polyvalent (broad spectrum) antivenene which can be administered as required," he said.