Matt Horn bitten twice after he found 11-year-old Braeden, who has autism, playing with the reptile

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A Melbourne father and his 11-year-old autistic son have been bitten by a tiger snake that slithered into their suburban home.

Matt Horn was bitten twice as he tried to protect his son, Braeden, who had been bitten while playing with the snake in the hallway of their Diamond Creek home.

Ambulance Victoria confirmed on Friday that paramedics had treated the pair for suspected snake bites on Tuesday before they were taken to the Austin hospital.

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A snake catcher, Mark Pelley, was called in to remove the snake. “Both of them got bitten and they got away unscathed because they did the right thing by calling triple-zero and the ambulance attended them straight away,” Pelley said.

“The only problem was the father was trapped in the room and he couldn’t get any treatment from the paramedics until I arrived to remove the snake.”

Pelley said tiger snakes were not normally aggressive and would strike only if people attempted to handle them. “The son had autism and didn’t know what was happening so he handled the snake and it bit him,” he said.

Tiger snakes often entered homes to escape the heat on hot nights, he said.



