Deadly Snake Threatens Fisherman
An Australian fisherman got an unwelcome surprise when he looked down and saw a lethal snake had boarded his boat while out at sea.
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Snakes are all the rage these days with nearly daily headlines about how they are entering people’s lives in completely unexpected ways. Most of them are of a benign nature, simply surprises in places you wouldn’t quite want to see them. But those cases aren’t really putting people in harm’s way at all. It’s just silly little run-ins with reptiles that are one step away from being a pet. That being said, an Australian man had an encounter that definitely ramped up the fear and stress around a snake encounter. According to The Guardian, he was trapped in a tiny boat for an extended period of time with one of the deadliest snakes around.
The Australian man was fishing in his small, 24 square foot, boat off the shore when he looked down and saw he’d picked up an unexpected and completely unwelcome passenger. It was a tiger snake that had somehow gotten on board. Not wanting to upset the snake, but clearly understanding the danger, the man had few options about how to proceed safely. He said he couldn’t exit the boat and leave because he’d lose the vessel outright. Also, getting out of the boat wasn’t likely to make the snake exit so that plan went by the wayside.
The only option was to share the boat with the snake and make the best of the situation while trying to get to shore. He was only a few hundred yards away from docking, so it wasn’t going to be a Life of Pi situation by any means, but having a tiger snake in close vicinity isn’t exactly a recipe for sitting back and relaxing on your boat. In fact, it really was something like a life-and-death situation.
Unlike some of these other snake encounters we’ve read about lately, the tiger snake does bring about additional concerns. Its venom has been known, at times, to be fatal to humans. At best, the bites can be incredibly painful and require immediate medical attention, something that wouldn’t be afforded the man while on his boat. It requires the stabilization of the affected area and identifying the specific type of snake so an anti-venom can be utilized. These were all non-starters while out to sea.
Eventually, the man was able to navigate his boat back to shore and he had put in a call to local wildlife authorities to meet him there to aid in getting the snake out of the boat. It ended up being a harrowing experience, though in the end there was no true harm done. The snake slithered off, not knowing the consternation it had caused or the fame garnered when it made national news.
Other snake incidents have been seemingly everywhere of late. There have been sightings in people’s closets, public parks, city streets, and even in the canned good sections of grocery stores. These would all rank in places you’d love to not run into a snake. But all of those were nonlethal buggers. This latest one we can add to the ranks of deadly snake encounters and it’s good news everyone involved remained safe.
