A woman in her 60s was bitten by a snake on the northern rivers rail trail near Burringbar after her bike ran over a two-metre-long eastern brown snake and trapped it in the chain. Paramedics were called to the scene at about 1pm on Wednesday, and she was taken to Tweed Valley hospital in a stable condition.
Sarah Mailey said the snake was freed from the bike chain after a challenging rescue. She said, "Its head wasn’t in the chain so it was free to be able to strike her leg."
The Northern NSW local health district said the woman was discharged on Thursday morning. Police attended at the request of paramedics to ensure public safety in the area.
Sarah Mailey and the rail trail
Mailey said the rider sustained a dry bite, even though the animal was an eastern brown snake, which is highly venomous and found across eastern Australia from northern Queensland to South Australia. She also said she had been called out to remove a number of snakes along the rail trail.
She said snakes were often attracted to the underside of the concrete path because of little burrows and rodents underneath it, and said the cooler weather also slowed the snake’s reflexes. Mailey said, "She [the bike rider] probably just thought it was a stick or a shadow and given that the snake’s blind in that eye, it’s obviously not seen the shadow coming towards it and given it enough time to move."
Wednesday on Burringbar
Mailey said, "If it was any other time of year and the snake wasn’t blind, it would have had energy and seen her coming and got out of the way." She added, "So it’s just a mixture of the time of the year, it being a blind snake, and it’s just part of life, unfortunately."
The snake was euthanised due to injuries sustained in the ordeal. For riders on the northern rivers rail trail, the immediate takeaway is simple: a snake on the path can be hidden until the last moment, and a crash over it can turn into a bite before there is time to react.
