DRIVER AIRLIFTED AFTER BEING BITTEN BY SNAKE ON REMOTE HIGHWAY
September 23, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DRIVER AIRLIFTED AFTER BEING BITTEN BY SNAKE ON REMOTE HIGHWAY
An unlucky truck driver suffered a ‘puncture’ of unique kind which checking his tyres in a parking bay at Belyando Crossing yesterday.
The 42-year-old driver had stopped in a truck parking bay, 5km south of the Belyando Road House on the Gregory Highway, about 306km west of the Mackay, about midday.
While inspecting and checking the pressure in his semi-trailer and dog tyres, he was bitten twice by a snake. The driver immediately jumped into the truck and drove 5km to the Belyando Crossing roadhouse at Llarnath to get help.
Roadhouse staff called 000 and helped bandage the bites and splint the driver’s leg to immobilise him. He was very unwell and in and out of consciousness.
RACQ CQ Rescue was tasked by Queensland Health about 12.30pm and with a doctor and Critical Care Paramedic on board, departed for the scene, landing at the remote roadhouse an hour later.
RACQ CQ Rescue landed in a parking lot near the roadhouse and loaded the patient into the helicopter. The man told the medical team he had previously had a life-threatening reaction to snake anti-venom, and being so far from medical care, the helicopter crew were ‘under pressure’ to transfer the truck driver to hospital treatment urgently. There was no time to ‘spare’.
After refuelling the helicopter quickly in Moranbah on the return flight, the patient was delivered to Mackay Base Hospital by 3pm.
With the warmer weather, snakes are now on the move across the region. RACQ CQ Rescue air crewman Grant Bollington said applying a pressure immobilisation bandage after a bite was critical to slowing the spread of venom.
"Often people who are bitten by a snake experience no early obvious symptoms. It's common for people to start feeling sick a few hours later and symptoms can progress quickly and may cause cardiac arrest or a life-threatening bleed,” he said.
"Every snake bite should be treated as a medical emergency – this poor bloke never expected to be bitten inspecting his truck tyres and being so far from a hospital HE was really in a very dangerous situation.
“There’s no doubt access to an aeromedical service and his quick transfer to hospital probably helped save his life,” Mr Bollington said.
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RACQ CQ Rescue landed at the Belyando Roadhouse, on the Gregory Highway, more than 300km west of Mackay yesterday to airlift a truck driver bitten y a snake.
Please credit any released photos and video footage to RACQ CQ Rescue.
Please note: Full title of rescue service is RACQ CQ Rescue.
For further information please contact:
Naomi Noy
RACQ CQ Rescue
Ph: 0417 578 182