Snake catcher's dire warning as dangerous snake found in home: 'Don't do this'
An Aussie man was shocked to spot a snake on the floor of his new home, but what he did next could have been fatal.
An Australian man got the shock of his life when he moved into a new home and discovered a deadly Eastern Brown Snake crawling across the kitchen floor – but what he did next was completely unexpected and according to an expert, unwise.
Surrounded by half-unpacked boxes at his new home in Brendale in the city of Morton Bay, the panicked man, Kevin, quickly grabbed the first thing he could find – a large saucepan lid – and managed to place it over the slithering baby snake before immediately calling for help.
Brandon ‘Giffo’ Gifford, from Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers, quickly arrived on the scene. While having the snake contained under a pot lid made his job slightly easier, he warned anyone who came across a snake in their house should not try to approach it.
“It was quite a shock [for the resident],” Gifford told Yahoo News Australia. “He ran into panic-mode, he didn’t know what to do and didn’t want it loose in the house so we couldn’t find it.
“I did say: ‘Mate, that’s the second most deadly snake in the world and Australia’s most venomous snake.’ He was totally shocked as he didn’t have a clue.”
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Gifford said capturing a snake of that size under a pot lid was quite a feat as they are extremely mobile and agile but added, a bite could land a person in hospital and the snake’s venom was deadly.
“If snakes are in the house, they are easy for us to manage,” he continued. “We suggest, if they are not in the main living space, shut the doors, put towels under the doors and call the snake catcher.”
Eastern Brown snake found in young girl's bedroom
It wasn’t the only close encounter with a Eastern Brown the 28-year-old has had recently, earlier this week he was called to a family home in nearby Moodlu, where an adult snake had found its way into a girl’s bedroom.
He said her panicked parents called the snake catcher after the creature climbed onto their daughter’s dressing table. The girl managed to escape the room and her parents sectioned off the door with towels.
“I think they used every towel in the house,” Gifford joked. “If snakes are in the house, they are easy for us to manage. We suggest, if they are not in the main living space, shut the doors and put towels under the doors and call the snake catcher.”
Leave snake catching to the experts
He said while snake catchers were professionals, they all had a mate who’d been bitten and urged Aussies to “leave it to the experts”.
“We are more prone to bites, but we know what we’re doing,” Giffo told Yahoo. “People do go into panic-mode and go to approach it but our advice is simple – leave it alone.
“You can watch them from a distance, we will find it. Sometimes, they move from room to room, they get in the house to escape the heat and don’t know how to get back out.
“We urge people not to approach them because if that goes wrong, someone could end up in hospital fighting for their life and come very close to dying from a bite. It can go from zero to 100 very quickly.”
Gifford said the service had been inundated with calls recently as snakes were more active due to it being snake season, which typically runs over spring and summer, and were trying to “restock”, feed and gain weight, while babies were also on the move.
Should anyone suffer a snake bite, immediately call Triple-0 and ask for an ambulance as minutes could be crucial.
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