A 26-year-old Australian hockey player is dead after ignoring a snakebite he believed to be harmless. Karl Berry had picked up the snake to remove it from a group of nearby children at a training field in Darwin. Thinking the snake was a harmless python, he ignored the bite it had given him on his finger and proceeded to go on a 1.4-mile run with his hockey team. Berry . He was taken to a nearby hospital where he remained until he died Wednesday night.
The venom, believed to be from the venomous western brown snake, was made even more potent by Berry’s heightened heart rate. “He had gone for a two-kilometer run which pumped the venom around his system much faster,” said paramedic Craig Garraway.
According to Darwin snake catcher Chris Peberty, a brown snakebite doesn’t hurt but is more deadly than that of the feared cobra. “Within hours, you are looking at a lack of co-ordination, dilated pupils, then you go into the risk of the systemic effects which start affecting your heart, your lungs, your respiratory system,” he said.