A British tourist has been branded reckless after he was bitten by what is believed to be the highly venomous brown snake while walking barefoot through tall grass.
Ben and his partner were on holiday on Faser/K’Gari Island in Queensland and had hired a car to do some off-roading.
He revealed that the vacation started well before it turned into a deadly nightmare after the first night.
A British tourist was rushed to hospital in an air ambulance after being bitten by a snake
He was called reckless after he was bitten by a snake while walking barefoot in tall grass
‘Well, so I just got bitten by a poisonous snake in Australia. A quick story for you,’ he said in a TikTok video.
The couple were traveling along a beach in their pink 4×4 when they decided to camp along the coast for the night.
“We managed to share camp with a few dingoes and a few crabs,” Ben said.
The couple woke up early the next morning to watch the sunrise when Ben used his drone to capture images of the surrounding landscape.
He crashed the remote-controlled device into a tree growing on top of a sand dune covered in tall grass.
Ben was retrieving his drone from a sand dune when he was bitten by the snake
“I had to go back down through that patch of grass and I stepped on something dark and I felt something hit my ankle,” he said.
Ben held his right foot up to the camera, revealing two puncture wounds to his ankle, believed to be from a brown snake.
“I went back to the truck, saw the fang marks, and then I kind of figured out what had happened. We had no signal,” he said.
He bandaged his leg and was rushed to the beach by a passing tourist when he finally got phone reception.
A helicopter is seen in the video moments later diving and picking up the injured tourist.
The man is thought to have stepped on a highly venomous eastern brown snake
Ben and his partner were on holiday on Fraser Island/K’Gari in Queensland and hired a car to do some off road driving
“Not too bad though, I got a free helicopter tour of Fraser Island,” Ben said.
Ben is then seen lying in a hospital bed and hooked up to monitoring machines, with the recovering expat still appearing to be in good spirits.
Ben is thought to have suffered a dry bite, when the snake strikes but no venom is released.
Dry bites are painful and can cause swelling and redness around the snakebite area.
Once medically assessed, there is usually no need for further treatment, such as with antivenoms.
‘Currently awaiting blood test and yeah welcome to fucking Australia,’ he said.
Social media users called out the tourist for walking through tall grass.
Ben was rushed to hospital in an air ambulance after the snakebite
“From an Aussie: don’t walk in the bushes,” one wrote.
“Bare feet in the cities, boots in the maquis,” added another.
“It could have been easily avoided,” added another. You got to the hospital, it was probably a non-venom warning bite.
Others took issue with the part of the video where Ben bandaged his injured ankle and then lifted it into the car as he was driven by the Good Samaritan.
“First off buddy never lift your leg if you get bitten, can rush the poison all over the store,” a third social media user wrote.
Many Australians have also speculated what type of snake it was.
“Most likely a brunette,” said one. “We were the camp next to him, the same night there was a 2.5m brown in the bathroom.”
Another added: “Either dugite or brown considering it was at the beach.”
