Snake bites sleeping teen in bed
NICK CALACOURAS
October 5th, 2008
NIGHTMARE: Ashlee Findlay, 16, who got the shock of her life in bed
A TEENAGE girl woke when a snake that had slithered into her bed and wrapped itself around her neck bit her on the arm.
Ashlee Findlay, 16, who is afraid of snakes, spiders and centipedes, spent two hours at hospital after the attack.
The receptionist said she would be haunted by the incident.
"I probably won't sleep in that room for a while," she said. "Everyone is a bit freaked. Something just has to touch a foot and we think it's a snake".
Ms Findlay woke up in her Howard Springs home at 2.30am on Thursday when the snake bit her.
"I thought it was a huge spider or something. I hate spiders. But a few seconds later, I felt something moving past my neck," she said. "I turned on my light to see this huge slithering snake on my pillow."
Ms Findlay said she had been asleep since 9pm and feared the snake could have been in her room the whole time.
"I started screaming and woke everyone one. They didn't believe me and told me to go back to bed," she said.
"I was in shock more than anything else".
Brother-in-law Shane Cordes tracked down the snake, whacked it on the head with part of a door frame, almost decapitating the creature.
Ashlee's mother, Kim Findlay, a remote area nurse, started treating the bite before driving her daughter and the snake to Royal Darwin Hospital.
"I knew they needed to identify the snake, but I didn't want to touch it," she said.
"I gave the doctor my car keys and said, 'it's in the boot, you can get it'."
Professor Bart Currie was called out to the hospital and identified the attacker as a slaty-grey snake, which is not venomous.
He said the snake likely mistook Ms Findlay's arm for a piece of food.
This is the fifth case reported at Royal Darwin Hospital in 18 years where a victim has woken in the middle of the night to find a large snake "chewing on an extremity".
"You could call these overambitious feeding attempts," he said.
