A man was bitten by one of the world’s deadliest snakes while on a camping trip in Australia with his partner.
Ben Ross, 29, and partner Georgia Powell, 28, from Hereford, were on a three-day camping trip on Fraser Island, Australia, when disaster struck. You can see footage of their ordeal here:
On the first morning of their trip, the couple filmed the stunning sunrise with their drone camera, but managed to crash it in the nearby sand dunes.
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As Ben went to retrieve it, he stepped on a ‘darkish thing’ lurking in the long grass and after inspecting his ankle noticed two fang marks.
Ben said: "I changed into my trainers as it was steep ground in places, as I walked off the sand into the grass, my mind was occupied with retrieving the drone.
"I managed to find the drone at the top of the dune and made my way back down, I've watched nature shows my whole life and I'm pretty switched on with keeping my wits about me, especially in Australia.
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"I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline of getting the drone back or assuming that snakes wouldn't be at the beach but I just didn't even question it, until I stepped on this darkish thing quite deep in the grass, felt like a stabbing pain, looked down at my ankle and saw blood."
When Ben returned to Georgia, he checked his ankle and saw two fang marks, and the pair decided to call the emergency services, but this is when things went from bad to worse.
He said: "I mentioned it to Georgia and we both sort of just sat there frozen for a second, quickly realising that we had no signal to call anyone, and the tide was in so we couldn't access the beach to get back.
"I put pressure on my ankle to try and stop the blood flow.
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"Georgia ran over to a neighbouring campsite and woke up the family - it was 5.30am at this point - she explained what had happened.
"Immediately this lovely lady rushed over to me with a bite kit, she told me not to move, wrapped the bite in a bandage, circled the bite area and wrote the time of bite on the bandage.
"They had been told the day before that an Eastern brown snake - responsible for more than 50 percent of snake deaths in Australia - had been spotted just along the campsite so we needed to move.
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"Her husband Dan and his friend Lloyd carried me into the back of his new Landcruiser and rushed us across the rocks, along the beach to the nearest emergency phone."
Around 40 minutes later, they heard the sound of a helicopter manned by paramedics, and Ben was airlifted to Hervey Bay Hospital, Queensland, Australia, where he spent the next 12 hours.
Ben said: "The helicopter landed and they rushed me into emergency services, the snake bite procedure requires 12 hours of blood monitoring. They took bloods and hooked me up to all the monitoring machines.
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"The nurses and doctors at Hervey Bay hospital were amazing, constantly checking in and keeping me updated with any information.
"They removed the bandages after a set amount of time and inspected the bite.
"Both fangs had hit the ankle bone perfectly so it didn't inject venom - a lucky escape."
Claire Reid