Australian hockey team captain dies after he is bitten by venomous snake he picked up to carry it off the pitch

Karl Berry was captain of the Commerce-Pints Hockey Club in Darwin

He was training at Marrara Stadium when he spotted the snake



It bit him on the finger as he carried it off the field and he died hours later



Tragic: Karl Berry, captain of the Commerce-Pints Hockey Club in Darwin, died after picking up a deadly Western Brown snake

The captain of an Australian hockey team died after he was bitten by a snake he picked up from the sports ground and carried into the bushes.

Karl Berry, 26, captain of the Commerce-Pints Hockey Club in Darwin, thought the snake was a harmless baby python.

In fact it was a deadly Western Brown, one of Australia's most venomous reptiles.



Not realising he had been bitten, Mr Berry then set of on a mile-long training run.

It was, reptile experts and medical staff agreed today, the worst thing he could have done. The exercise quickly spread the snake's venom throughout his body.

Part-way through the run, Mr Berry collapsed.

Paramedics arrived as other players comforted him on the hockey field at Marrara Stadium.



He was conscious enough to tell them that he had picked up a snake earlier.

'He said he thought it was a python, which would not have been dangerous,' said St John Ambulance operations manager Craig Garraway.

'He was quite unwell at this stage

'When the paramedics looked at his hand they saw the bite mark on his finger.

'The bite was more consistent with a bite from a poisonous species,' Mr Garraway told the Northern Territory News.

Mr Berry was rushed to Royal Darwin Hospital in a critical condition and died a few hours later.

Venomous: A Western Brown snake, like the one that bit Karl Berry, pictured in the Australia Zoo. Though deadly, a bite from a Western Brown cannot be easily noticed because the reptile does not inflict any pain

Mr Chris Peberty, a Darwin snake catcher, said a bite from a Western Brown cannot be easily noticed because the reptile does not inflict any pain.

'Then, within hours, you are looking at a lack of co-ordination and dilated pupils,' he told the ABC.

'After that you go into the risk of systemic effects, which start affecting your heart, your lungs and your respiratory system.'