A young woman has spoken out about the horror of waking up to a brown snake sinking its teeth into her hand.
Kasey Leadbetter, 21, has been working on a remote cattle station in Glenmorgan in Queensland’s Western Downs region.
But when she went to sleep on January 12, after a long day on the farm, the pain woke her up at 1am.
The photo shows the brown snake that attacked Mrs. Leadbetter
“I remember turning around and feeling as strong as a bite,” she told 9News.
‘I was absolutely scared. I’m not going to lie.
“My hand felt like it was on fire and I felt it start to move down my arm.”
Mrs Leadbetter called the family she worked for on the cattle farm, who sprang into action and applied a pressure bandage to slow the spread of the poison before calling the emergency services.
“They still knew it could go either way. It was very exciting,” Leadbetter said.
Just one bite from a brown snake can kill an adult in less than 30 minutes.
The neurotoxin in the venom shuts down a human’s heart, lungs and diaphragm once it enters the bloodstream, which can quickly lead to death.
Mrs Leadbetter called the family she worked for on the cattle farm, who sprang into action and applied a pressure bandage to slow the spread of the poison before calling the emergency services.
“My hand felt like it was on fire and I felt it start to move down my arm,” Ms Leadbetter said.
Mrs Leadbetter was taken to hospital by an RACQ LifeFlight helicopter (pictured)
With a compression bandage, a person can survive for several hours.
Ms Leadbetter was airlifted to Toowoomba Hospital where she was given anti-venom.
She has since made a full recovery and is now urging all Australians to take first aid training on snakebite treatment.
“It saved my life and it could save other people’s lives,” she said.