Story Archive

Don’t Panic

Rod Sommerville, 54, was working in his yard in Yeppoon, Qld., Australia, when an eastern brown snake bit him on the finger. His son was sleeping on the couch, but Sommerville didn’t want to wake him and make him panic. “If you panic it makes it worse,” he said. Instead, he killed the snake with a shovel, called an ambulance, went to the fridge, grabbed a beer, and sat and waited. “I said to myself, if I’m going to cark it I’m going to have a beer, so I got a Goldie out of the fridge and drank that,” Sommerville said, “’cause you know eastern browns are the second most venomous snake in the world.” He spent four days in intensive care, and remains hospitalized with kidney damage, but is still very much alive. (MS/Rockhampton Morning Bulletin) ...Venomous snake: Australian for “reason to get a beer.”