US Edition
Father and son both bitten by deadly tiger snake in Australia after boy spotted it inside their house and picked it up
A father and his son were bitten by a deadly tiger snake in their home in Australia after the boy began playing with the creature in their hallway.
Matt Horn, the father, was bitten twice while trying to protect his 11-year-old son Braeden.
The boy was bitten first by the snake and then the father protected him but became trapped in a room with it.
Tiger snakes are typically shy but can become aggressive and extremely dangerous if confronted or under stress.
"He had already started playing with it when my wife saw him out of the corner of her eye," Mr Horn told the Herald Sun. "It struck him on the toe and inner leg."
The father and son were taken to hospital but released.
Mark Pelley, a snake catcher, was called to the house in Melbourne to remove the snake.
"Both of them got bitten and they got away unscathed because they did the right thing by calling triple-zero [emergency services] and the ambulance attended them straight away," he said.
"The only problem was the father was trapped in the room [with the snake] and he couldn't get any treatment from the paramedics until I arrived to remove the snake.
"The son had autism and didn't know what was happening so he handled the snake and it bit him.”
Mr Pelley said the snake may have entered the house to escape the summer heat at night-time.
The incident follows several other encounters with snakes in Australia in the past week, including a man who twice woke at night this week to find a carpet python slithering across his neck.
"I felt the same feeling — a cold, slithering feeling sliding up my shoulder across my neck," Max Mason told ABC News.
"The snake and I are still good friends, no-one got hurt."
In a separate incident, a woman driving on a highway in South Australia was shocked by the sight of a red-bellied black snake which popped up from beneath her windscreen wiper.
She and her daughter drove on for an hour until they reached their destination.
On Tuesday incredible pictures emerged after a deadly brown snake was captured swallowing a python whole.