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WHEN a red-bellied black snake is hungry, not even the world’s second-most-venomous land snake can escape the menu.
On Saturday Sean Shaw captured footage on his phone of a red-bellied black snake chasing down and digesting a brown snake on a dirt road near Myponga.
In the video the red-bellied black snake, with a more-than-handy size advantage, clamps down on the smaller reptile, injecting its venom.
The brown snake tries desperately to retaliate, but cannot penetrate the scales of its hunter, despite trying again and again.
Mr Shaw — who used to work for Adelaide Snake Catchers — said he first saw the red-bellied black chase the brown snake over the road as he drove past, and stopped to film the fight.
“After about a 20-minute tussle the red-bellied black snake eventually was able to swallow the brown snake,” he said.
The red-bellied black snake clamps down on the brown snake. Picture: Sean ShawThe brown snake tries to fight back. Picture: Sean Shaw
“The whole episode took maybe half an hour.
“When we left the brown snake was about half swallowed but (the red-bellied) seemed to have stalled!”
While shocking, snake catcher Corey Renton, from Snakeaway Services, says it’s not that uncommon.
“Red-bellies are actually reptile eaters,” Mr Renton said.
“Brown snakes much prefer rodents while red-bellies eat frogs and lizards, they live in dams and creeks naturally.”
Red-bellied black snakes are dangerous to humans but their bites are not usually life threatening.
We have students every week in our first aid course ask about blue bottle stings. these are one of the most common stings that occur especially in summer when everyone is at the beach. Please learn the correct first aid course techniques by attending one of our cheap but effective first aid courses. We complete our first aid courses at the Dickson Tradies.
A 15-year-old girl was stung in ten places by bluebottles last month, as ambulance bosses revealed more than one person a week was hospitalised by marine life across the northern beaches last year.
Bluebottles were the most common culprit, with 43 calls for ambulances due to the creatures including for the girl, who was injured on December 5.
Sophie Bowman 4 checking out the bluebottles on Fairlight Beach in 2014. Picture: Bradley Hunter
She was stung across her legs, hips and stomach at Manly.
Last February, a 25-year-old male was also taken to hospital after struggling to breathe at Narrabeen, after being stung.
Meanwhile, three people who were stung by jellyfish in 2016 called ambulances, one person was the victim of an octopus sting, while 29 people were stung by stingrays, which are notorious in Pittwater.
A bluebottle jellyfish. Picture: Kit Wise
There were four stingray cases on December 30 alone across NSW, including a 55-year-old man who was stung at Ku-ring-gai Chase.
There were no incidents involving sharks in the area, which covers Sydney Harbour Bridge to Palm Beach.
The figures are the highest overall out of Sydney’s four ambulance districts.
However, while bosses said bluebottles are a part of summer, brought in to beaches by northeast winds, stings should be taken seriously.
Manly Daily reader Kim De Kock’s image of Bluebottles at Little Manly
NSW Ambulance paramedic Matt Burke said: “Bluebottle stings can induce a potential anaphylactic or severe reaction in some people, particularly if there is any immune compromise.
“If you get a series of stings or if you get stung around the airway, you can get some swelling and some possible airway compromise.”
He said it was important to remove the affected person from the water and perform basic first aid as soon as possible, and call triple-0 if necessary.
The figures from across NSW show ocean bites and stings peaked in January and February.
Bluebottle washed on the beach. Picture: Regi Varghese
WHAT TO DO
Bluebottles Rinse area with seawater to remove remaining stings, place in hot water
Stingrays Place in hot water, control any bleeding with pressure; if the barb is embedded, do not remove it, but get to hospital
Blue-ringed octopus Apply a pressure immobilisation bandage and get to hospital
Good fast thinking by the local on scene. Wasn’t needed but with the increase in children being locked in cars I can understand someone smashing the window. If you do need to complete cpr on someone it is great to have done the training. Book in to a first aid course in Canberra now with us at Canberra First Aid. Our first aid courses are excellent teaching you a range of first aid skills in a safe and relaxed environment.
Ben Guarino
A US police officer smashed a car window to rescue a baby, only to discover it was a doll. Photo: Roger Whiteway
Lieutenant Jason Short believed he was about to save a life.
A 911 call – someone had spotted a baby left alone in a car on a hot July day – prompted the US police officer to rush to the Walmart shopping plaza in Keene, New Hampshire. There, just as the call had said, he spied an infant in a car: a blanket, a bottle and finally two bare feet, motionless, emerging from beneath the fabric.
He drew his baton, smashed the window and saved the child.
Ainslie, the doll ‘rescued’ by police.
Something was wrong. He described the infant as appearing lifeless or dead. Short began administering CPR. It did not work. He called for an ambulance, and then he checked for an obstructed airway.
“And I went to put my finger in its mouth and it was all resistance,” he said to WMUR-TV. “And I’m like, ‘This is a doll.'” He called the ambulance again, to relay its services were no longer needed.
The doll, as it turned out, belonged to a Vermont resident named Carolynne Seiffert. That the figure was so realistic was not a mistake. Seiffert, whose 20-year-old son died in 2005 from Hunter’s disease, collects lifelike dolls as a form of coping with the loss. She owns about 40 of them.
Such dolls are known as reborn dolls, mimics of human babies in exquisite artificial detail. Many start out as regular, $30-a-pop toys, although the end product can fetch thousands of dollars. As The New York Times described in 2005, in the processes of “reborning” a doll the item is first dismantled, cleaned of paint and recoloured, “often using a blue that helps the artist achieve a realistically veiny look. Glass eyes may be substituted for the original plastic ones. Hair is removed and replaced, sometimes with hand-implanted mohair or even human hair. ” To simulate the weight of a real infant, the doll’s body cavity may be filled with pellets.
There is little medical research into the value of reborn dolls for grief. But columnist and psychiatrist Gail Saltz wrote at Today in 2008 that dolls may act as transitional objects, items that help overcome a sense of abandonment. “For some women, such a transitional object eases them into ways of finding more external methods of dealing with their needs of caretaking and loving a being who loves them back,” Saltz wrote. “It is the concretised fantasy of getting unconditional love.”
Seiffert, who named the $2,000 doll Ainsley, sent a statement to WMUR, saying that “I’ve been laughed at and embarrassed by all the fuss,” and, “You can’t know how people choose to deal with their losses in life.”
Keene Police Chief Brian Costa said he would pay the $300 to fix Seiffert’s window. He supported Officer Short’s actions.
“If all indications are that a baby is in a car in upward of well over 90-degree weather,” he said to the Union Leader, officers will break car windows. This is not the first time emergency responders have broken car windows to save what turned out to be dolls; police recommend that such items are left in car trunks so as to be completely out of view, or taken with their owners.
Being left alone in a parked car can be dangerous to young children. By the last week of July 2016, 21 children, many younger than 2, died of heat exposure after being left unattended in a car in the US. The annual average is 37 deaths.
“I would never assume that it’s a doll,” Short said to WMUR. “I would always assume that it’s a child. I would never do anything different.”
Seiffert said she will affix a sign to her car, to warn other would-be rescuers to leave her windows unbroken as Ainsley is not real.
Since Christmas Day in NSW, four children aged under five have drowned – three in pools and one in a fish pond.
SLSQ Academy Operations Manager, Ken Clark, said while prompt calls to triple zero are “wonderful”, CPR from a knowledgeable bystander could save lives.
“The first four to eight minutes are crucial,” he said.
Mr Clark said it’s often after a tragedy that people wish they had the skills to perform CPR.
“People say “oh I wish I had done that class, I’ve been wanting to for ages but never got around to it’,” he said.
Part of the benefit of CPR training, Mr Clark said, is that it gives people the confidence to help out in the case of an emergency – a skill all backyard pool owners should have.
“What it does do is it gives you the skills to be a first aider – in your mind, you say ‘I can do this’,” he said.
“Any attempt at resuscitation is better than no attempt but there’s nothing like practice, so good CPR is even better.”
While proper pool fencing and a secure gate is also vital to prevent backyard drownings, Mr Clark emphasised that parents must still watch their kids.
“You’ve got to supervise the kids,” he said.
“But teaching them to swim is the first thing.”
The drownings have prompted calls for swimming lessons to be mandatory in all Australian primary schools.
In an opinion piece for Fairfax Media, YMCA NSW chief executive Leisa Hart said all Australian kids “deserve the skills to survive”.
“Astonishingly, it’s thought that three out of five Australian children leave primary school without basic swimming skills,” Ms Hart said.
Ms Hart said the government, schools, Surf Life Saving Australia, the Royal Life Saving Society Australia and other organisations need to work together to teach children water safety.
For Certain! Every pool owner needs to have completed CPR in a first aid course. It costs minimal and it will save your family members life. Make sure you book in early to our first aid course as we are booking out around 1 week before course dates now. Our first aid course is excellent. Our first aid course is cheap. Our first aid course is the best in Canberra. Boo in to our first aid course now.
