A lady at work got a callf rom her daughter who'd got a call from the lady's husband to say there was a snake in the backyard at home. He asked her to call someone to come and pick it up. Then he basically went on radio silence and they were worried because they couldn't get through to him. The only information they had was 'the snake was blackish'.

Cue me piping up with, "Black? Could be a red-belly"

The lady, "Is that bad? We don't know anything about snakes"

"Oh yeah, it's poisonous, it can kill you"

I think after that I may have given her the emotional equivalent of a heartattack. There was much frantic alling around of people and finally her daughter calld the police to send someone over to make sure he was okay.

Her husband was fine (even though WIRES told him to follow the snake) but now she's worried about further incidents considering they live close to the bush.

I gave her as much detail as I could remember (I think I read it in a book once) on how to deal with snake bites and the like.

I hope that made up for the earlier implication that her husband could have been dead.

Foot-in-mouth-like

Tyd

PS - Thanks to Joni who mentioned in the gbook that it would take two weeks to kill a grown man if bitten by a red-belly. This is why having just a smidge of knowledge is dangerous - it'll incite panic! 21 February 2006 - 5:36 pm

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