Fleur Ferris back on the farm Saturday, with Kelpie Dorothy, preparing to go back into the paddocks to keep monitoring the irrigation water.
Photo by
Andrew Mole
A woman has been bitten by a 1.5m brown snake on her Moama farm – and walked away from it.
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Literally.
Fleur Ferris was monitoring water in a wheat crop on her Moama property on Friday when the snake reared up and struck her on her thigh above her left knee.
“I didn’t see it until it was a flash in the air, and then it hit me,” Fleur said.
“I always look out for them, everyone who grows up on a farm does, and where it happened there was hardly and grass or anything, and I still didn’t see it,” she said.
“We had a smaller one in the carport last week, but I saw that one.
“I had just adjusted the water and was filming a section of the crop to show my husband Dave when it happened, I just couldn’t believe it.
“I jumped back and then the snake reared up again and I thought it was going to have another strike, but then it took off.”
Home alone on the farm, Fleur tried to get her husband on the phone – he was spraying on a property at Bunnaloo – but he didn’t pick up.
She then rang someone from her office, which she had just left to duck home for the water check.
Fleur Ferris hooked up to IVs in Echuca’s emergency department on Friday night.
Photo by
Supplied
Fleur is a former ambo, and her husband Dave still is, so she knew the drill.
“I know you are supposed to immobilise, apply a compression bandage and get help, but an ambulance would not have reached where I was, and by the time someone got here, found me and got me out it was quicker to do it myself,” Fleur explained.
“So I walked back to the house, climbed the fence, got a bandage on it and drove to the hospital,” she said.
“And the team there was fantastic, they had just done a snake bite training package, and everyone knew exactly what to do and they swung into action.
“I doubt it was five minutes from the time I walked through the door to the time I was on a bed in emergency wrapped in compression bandages and having my first bloods taken.”
Fleur said by the time she got back to her house she had the adrenaline shakes, but the people in her office agreed she would get help quicker if she headed off herself.
She said she didn’t have any immediate or obvious symptoms, although her leg was hurting, and still was on Saturday, and her vision was fine, so she drove.
The doctors told her if the bite had been venomous, the first or second blood test would show it.
“Venom goes into the lymphatic system so depending on the bite it can take a while, and you are tested every three hours for 12 hours,” Fleur said.
“I can’t say enough about how good the ERH team was, once they had started monitoring me, I was moved to the short stay unit which is much better if you are trying to calm down, much quieter than emergency,” she said.
“In the end the testing showed it was a dry bite, which is the most common, fortunately.”
Cleared and released at 2am Saturday, Fleur reversed her arrival, and walked out under her own steam and was back in the paddocks a few hours later.
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