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The
Snake Catcher Takes His Own Advice
Ronn
Slusser, a snake catcher in Alice Springs, had to take his own advice the
other day when, while off duty in his garden, he was bitten by a
black-headed Western Brown snake.
“Don’t
panic, don’t panic,” Ronn repeated calmingly to himself as he drove to
hospital. “Remember, nine times out of 10, the snake does not actually
release its venom. And even if it has done, you still have a few hours
before you die.”
Ronn
is the cheerful face you see after you ring 0407-983-276 on finding a
snake on your kitchen floor or behind your air conditioning system. Any
time of the day or night, he drops whatever he is doing and zooms out with
stick and hoop bag to catch the scaly intruder. In January 2003 alone,
Ronn, originally from Perth, has already been called out to 35 snake
emergencies in the town.
But
until the incident in his garden, Ronn, who handles all kinds of reptiles
at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre, had never been bitten by a snake. He
was gardening peacefully, unaware that the Western Brown was lying nearby,
under a bush.
“Suddenly,
it bit me,” said Ronn. “I felt the hit but no pain. I realised I had
been bitten because I had three little red dots on my finger. There is a
car park opposite my garden. I deduced that the snake had been run over
because its back was broken. I must have startled it in its last agony.”
Of
course, if you come across a snake in your home or garden, it is unlikely
to bite you if you leave it alone. Snakes are not aggressive and only
attack if you provoke them, for example by accidentally treading on them.
They come into the house to get out of the hot sun and they like your
garden, especially if it is untidy, because they could find mice or rats
there. They are not interested in eating you. So just wait for Ronn to
arrive and everything will be cool.
But
in this case, Ronn had been bitten. As phlegmatically as he could, he went
into the emergency routine. He bandaged his hand, over the wound and then
up the arm.
“I
always carry three bandages on me,” he said. “Snake venom travels
through the lymph system, not the blood. If there is venom in your system
and you put on a bandage, it doubles your survival time.”
Ronn
drove himself to the hospital, repeating the mantra: “Calm, calm,
calm.” It is important to stay calm for two reasons. Firstly, you
don’t want raise your heart beat. And secondly, if you are driving in a
state of panic, you can find yourself in a road accident before you even
reach the hospital.
In
the old days, you had to know which kind of snake had bitten you in order
to receive the appropriate anti-venom. But modern hospitals should keep
snake venom detection kits, which is a relief, as the most common snakes
of the Australian red centre are confusingly named. The Western Brown is
indeed a brown snake but the King Brown is actually a type of black snake.
Being
a specialist, Ronn was able to identify the culprit in his case. Hospital
staff put him on an ECG to monitor his heart rate, then tested his blood
and urine at intervals to find out if venom had entered his system.
Luckily,
the test results were negative and Ronn went home. In nine out of 10
cases, the snake gives a warning bite but does not actually release any
poison because it needs its venom for digestion, just as humans need
saliva. The
Alice Springs Hospital deals quite often with tourists, who have trodden
on sticks and mistaken the prick for a snake bite. “But we always
check,” said hospital spokeswoman Jane McAlister. “It is better to be
safe than sorry.” The hospital recommends that patients suspected of
being bitten stay under observation for 12 hours.
After
the drama, Ronn went straight back to work, handling reptiles. “It’s
like after falling off a horse,” he said. “If you don’t get back on
again immediately, you will lose your nerve.”
Ronn,
who has long, blond hair, tied in a pony tail, is seriously cool. He said
he was always calm when tackling snakes but admitted his hands trembled
later in a kind of after-shock.
“I
don’t blame the snake that bit me,” he said. “It’s nature and you
have got to respect that. In the same way, I don’t agree with killing
sharks or crocodiles as a ‘punishment’ because they have attacked
humans.”
At
the Reptile Centre, run by Rex Neindorf, captured snakes are kept and
periodically released back into the wild – at a safe distance from Alice
Springs! Ronn’s work there also involves training a new acquisition, a
three-metre crocodile, to entertain the tourists by jumping for chicken or
rabbit. It is a strange way to earn a living, you might think. But Ronn, who also gets up before dawn to do crew work on the hot air balloons that carry tourists over the MacDonnell Ranges, is highly motivated. He and his partner, Dorinda Blok, originally from Holland, work like crazy for six months of the year so that they can afford to go off cycling and touring around Australia in the other half of the year.
What
happens if Ronn is away cycling when you find a King Brown in your
outhouse? Don’t worry. In the cold desert winter, most snakes go to
sleep. But if you are in trouble, there are two other snake catchers in
town. |
