Australian man thought ‘this is it’ after venomous tiger snake bite, calls family to say goodbye

A snake catcher told an Australian radio station that he thought “this is it” after a tiger snake bit him earlier this week.

Jamie Lind was removing a snake from a property in a town called Willaura, located about 150 kilometres west of Melbourne in Australia.

He told The Courier that he had captured the snake he had been called for and was walking around the property with the owner when he spotted a second snake.

“Lying there was one of the biggest tiger snakes I have ever seen,” Lind told the newspaper. He grabbed it by the tail when it “swung up to bite me on the face.”

Tiger snakes are known for their “fearsome reputation,” “often aggressive defence,” and “toxic venom,” according to The Australian Museum, which describes the snakes as “extremely dangerous to humans.”

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“Although generally shy and preferring escape over conflict, a cornered tiger snake will put on an impressive threat display by holding its forebody in a tense, loose curve with the head slightly raised and pointed at the offender,” the museum’s website says.

Its venom is “strongly neurotoxic and coagulant” — anyone bitten by a tiger snake should seek medical attention right away.

Lind wound up dodging the facial bite but still got bit in his armpit region, under his shoulder blade.

He told a talk radio show called 3AW Drive that “it didn’t even really feel like a bite.”

“But instantly, it took,” Lind said in the radio interview. “Within four or five minutes, I started feeling the effects.”

The hard part was that it was under his armpit, he told the radio station.

“I was praying that I could just get my phone, to make a phone call to my wife,” Lind said.

The incredulous radio show host asks him: “But you thought you were going to die, did you?” to which Lind says “Pretty much, yeah, I said goodbye and said this is it, I don’t know how far the ambulance is.”

Lind told The Courier he began “passing out” and throwing up.

“I called my wife and children when I was at the property to say goodbye,” Lind told the newspaper. “I didn’t think I would make it.”

It took 40 minutes for the ambulance to reach the property, he added. He told the radio station the property was in a “remote area.”

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Luckily, Lind wound up at Ballarat Base Hospital — about 100 kilometres from the location where Lind was bitten — spending 24 hours in its intensive care unit.

A Facebook post shows him lying in bed: “Today I was out at a snake call when I was bitten under the arm by a tiger snake.”

He and his wife reportedly run a wildlife education business called Jamie and Kim’s Mobile Zoo.

The Courier reported that Lind said he is retiring from catching snakes due to the effects of the antivenom on his body.