Brave teen beats puff adder bite

Jude Mitchell (15) feels he may have had some kind of premonition before his encounter with a puff adder while hiking in the Drakensberg last Friday.

The Durban High School grade 10 pupil is slowly recovering at home after being bitten by the heavily-bodied and well camouflaged snake.

Jude is the grandson of former editor of the South Coast Herald, Colleen Haggard, who resides in Ramsgate.

Speaking to the Herald, Jude said that the evening before their hike they were chatting over dinner about the danger of snake bites.

“I had pulled out a snake book and we read up on the venomous snakes that may be encountered – of the four species – the puff adder was the worst.”

Puff adder venom is potently cytotoxic, causing severe pain, swelling, blistering and in many cases severe tissue damage.

Jude said they had seen a puff adder lying on the lawn last year, at the same house where he and his family had spent lockdown for 65 days.

Early on Friday morning the family set out on a six kilometre hike.

Jude’s father, Sean said they had stopped for a dip in a gorgeous little pool with a waterfall and then continued up a very steep path to the next plateau.

At the last rise, Jude jogged ahead out of Sean’s sight and the next moment ran back to him and said he’d been bitten by a snake.

“I asked him if he’d seen what it was and he responded: ‘definitely an adder’. I asked ‘how big?’ and he responded that it was much bigger than the one we had seen last year. The fact that it got him on the knee indicates that it was very large.”

“I originally thought it was a thorn but it was too painful for a thorn, so I went back to have a look and there it was lying in the pathway. My first reaction was shock but then I calmed down and went into ‘pure function mode’,” said Sean.

At this point they were more than five kilometres from the nearest road.

“We took my uncle’s T-shirt and wrapped it around Jude’s knee to act as a large crepe bandage and I used his watch to monitor his heart rate while being carried,” he added.

Sean said his family was unbelievable. His brothers, Warner and Gregg, took turns carrying Jude piggy-back, running flat out the whole distance.

“Running up and down so many ridges, somehow even I didn’t tire. I don’t think I’ve ever run like that before and it was effortless. Warner and Gregg running like that carrying 50kg Jude was incredible. My brothers would have put British adventurer, Bear Grylls to shame. True heroes.”

Meanwhile, Sean’s sister-in-law, Mel, had managed to get a phone signal and called for an ambulance.

At the nature reserve gate KZN Ezemvelo Officer Garth Patterson, who also heads local security was waiting with a bakkie for them.

Sean and Jude were transported in the open bakkie at break-neck speed to rendezvous with the ambulance waiting on the road to Underberg.

“Jude was in some serious pain, but still chatted and joked. Such a brave boy,” said Sean.

Base manager and paramedic, Kate Bodmann of Underberg Emergency Medical Services (UEMS) explained that she, together with paramedic Smah Ndaba, received a call from a local stating that a young boy had been bitten by a snake at Three Pools along the Drak Gardens Road.

“The patient was stabilised by UEMS paramedics as well as by Dr Alan Howard and transported to a Pietermaritzburg hospital for further specialised treatment,” said Kate.

Dr Howard has been actively involved in medical education both abroad and in South Africa and is also the author of the medical textbook, Emergency Management of Acute Poisoning.

Sean said the wonderful Dr Howard stabilised Jude, but didn’t have anti-venom and recommended they take him to Hilton Hospital, which was a two-hour mad rush from Underberg.

Kate said that on arrival at the Pietermaritzburg hospital, a surgeon, doctors and nurses were waiting for them, and Jude immediately received eight ampules of anti-venom and was kept in ICU for observation.

Jude said he felt so relieved once he got to the hospital.

But he said the scariest moment was when he had to urinate in a bottle (he was attached to drips and monitors) and his BP suddenly dropped, all the monitors bleeped and he passed out.

Doctors and nurses rushed in and after further treatment with injections of adrenaline, he recovered.

He was discharged from hospital last Sunday.

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