Field Hockey Player Dies After Snake Bite, Run
An Australian field hockey player died after receiving a venomous bite from a king brown snake and then going on a run.
26-year old Karl Berry, captain of the Commerce-Pints team, was cleaning up at Marrara Hockey Centre in Darwin, Austria, when he picked up a snake. The snake bit him, and he threw it into the bushes — but not before the snake's neurotoxic venom had entered his bloodstream.
Afterwards, Berry went on a 1.2-mile training run before collapsing.
In the ambulance, 15 minutes elapsed before Berry told the paramedics about the snake.
St. John's Ambulence operations manager Craig Garraway said the training run pumped the venom through Berry's system faster.
Snake venom, which is highly modified saliva, is delivered to victims' blood stream by specialized fangs equipped with an injection system. Typically it is composed of a complex mixture of 20 or more enzymes and proteins with toxic properties.
Once in the bloodstream, the venom of the king brown snake attacks the nervous system, in addition to acting as a coagulant and myotoxin.
Myotoxins are peptides that cause severe muscle necrosis and paralysis, and can cause paralysis of the diaphragm, resulting in soffocation.
The treatment for a bite from the king brown snake is black snake antivenom.