It wasn’t a stick that flicked up and scratched Dubbo farmer Jack Cresswell’s leg as he rode his motorbike home after moving a mob of rams on New Year’s Eve.
His shorts-clad leg didn’t feel quite right, and as he rode along Mr Cresswell remembered there was Digit in this paddock, and that he had removed every stick before it was sown.
He stopped to have a look at the next gate and sure enough he had been bitten by a snake.
Thoughts of kicking back and celebrating the New Year and he raced home after a job well done had suddenly taken a dramatic turn.
Watch the full interview above.
Keeping calm, so he says, Mr Cresswell got back on the motorbike, and rode home as fast as he could – hardly slowing down to inform his mother, with a few expletives thrown in for good measure, what had happened. She was on horseback and would later tell Mr Cresswell she had never ridden so fast in her life to follow him home.
Only half an hour before they had been discussing how their dog Milo had been bitten by a snake in that paddock the previous year - he also lived through the experience with medical assistance.
Next came first aid in the shed with his father and road trip to Dubbo, where they met an ambulance.
It was in the ambulance that the enormity of the situation hit Mr Cresswell.
“You're not really sure what's going to happen. There's a few things I probably didn't, haven't sorted out yet, that needed to be, if it went the other way, but it didn't,” he said.
He was kept in Dubbo hospital for 24 hours for observation, and didn’t require antivenom, as luckily there wasn't enough snake venom in his system to need it.
These were some of his key learnings from the experience:
He was interested to learn that you don’t need to know what type of snake bites you for anti-venom anymore, so there’s no need to hunt a snake down after a bite.
He emphasised the importance of preparedness and counts himself lucky as a family farmer that he knew where to access the snake bite kit. He encouraged farm owners to ensure all employees knew the same.
Snake bites are no longer treated with a torniquet, rather a pressure bandage is applied to immobilise limbs, and patients should be kept as still as possible.
You would think Mr Cresswell wouldn’t be able to top the New Year excitement this year, but he’s getting married in Spain later in the year.
Before his partner wraps him up in cotton wool in the lead up to the event, Mr Cresswell is preparing for his family’s Annalara White Dorper Ram Sale, to be interfaced on AuctionsPlus on Wednesday, February 19.
"We have over 100 rams available for our clients in February. It's the 23rd or 24th year of sales, which is exciting," he shared.