3-year-old girl saved by her grandmother after being bitten by a deadly snake in Australia

A 3-year-old girl was saved by her quick-thinking grandmother after being bitten by a potentially deadly snake while playing in her backyard in Western Australia.

Lucia Carna was playing in the yard of her grandmother’s house in Mandurah when she was bitten by the poisonous snake, which doctors believe was a dugite, ABC reports.

She was bitten after stepping on the reptile, when she came out of a garden bed.

Doctors who treated Lucia say that the rapid first aid given to the young woman was vital to saving her life.

After she was bitten, her grandmother Jill bound her legs tightly until an ambulance arrived and took her to Rockingham General Hospital.

Lucia’s mother, Holly Carna, said doctors told them that quick first aid had helped Lucia.

“What they told us at the hospital was that Mom’s actions right after had made a big difference,” Carna said.

“When that phone call came, that you never want to receive, that your son, something happened … my thought was ‘Mom can handle that.’

He said that he knew there were snakes when he grew up on a farm, but that he did not expect to meet them in the suburbs of Mandurah.

Carna said all parents should educate themselves on first aid for snakes.

“When you think about getting your first aid, you think that you are going to find yourself in a car accident or that a person in the restaurant is going to have a heart attack and they are going to need you,” he said.

“But that’s probably less likely. He’s more likely to use it on someone he spends a lot of time with, someone he loves.”

He said it could make a “big difference.”

The emergency physician who treated Lucia said applying pressure to the area around the snakebite was crucial.

“Most deaths from brown snake bites occur prior to hospital arrival from cardiac arrest,” said Dr. Stephen Grainger.

He said the pressure could slow the spread of the poison through the body before the patient reached the hospital and could receive the antidote.

“If the patient collapses and goes into cardiac arrest, we know that good CPR, which is learned in a first aid course, will greatly improve his outcome and give him the opportunity to get to the hospital and receive an antidote.” – News.com.au