An Australian field hockey player died from snake bite after attempting to pick the creature up and carry it off the field where his team was practicing.
26-year old Karl Berry was bitten by the deadly king brown snake when he picked it up and threw it off the field. Reports say that Berry thought this was a small python which wouldn’t usually be poisonous.
It turns out that Berry guessed wrong and that he also apparently didn’t realize he had been bitten until it was far too late. The fact that the the player then went on a training run probably only hurt the situation more.
The snake bite was able to run through his system that much faster as the heart pumped the venom through his body that much faster.
During the run the field hockey player suddenly collapsed and his teammates tried to figure out what was going on. Because no one realized that he had actually been bitten, it took too long to get the young man the help he needed.
Field hockey might be almost entirely a woman’s sport here in the United States, but its quite a rather popular sport in Australia and other parts of the world.
What makes this particular story that much more tragic is that Berry apparently went to move the snake because he knew that there were young children practicing their own field hockey around the area.
While he was apparently conscious when paramedics arrived, the fact that it took so long for the player and his teammates mention the snake bite. It most likely took them this long because they were all convinced the snake wasn’t actually something that was a danger.
Berry was the captain of the field hockey team that was practicing when he got the snake bite.
