Deadly Snake Bites 3-Year-Old Girl Playing At Home, Mother Shares Safety Tips

A 3-year-old girl in Australia narrowly escaped death, thanks to her family's prompt reaction after she was bitten by a deadly snake.

The incident took place last week in the city of Mandurah. The girl was playing with her brother and grandmother at their home when she unknowingly stepped on a snake, ABC News reported. The reptile had reportedly slithered inside from a garden bed in a courtyard.

Lucia Carna's grandmother Jill wrapped a bandage around the girl's legs and kept the girl still until an ambulance arrived and rushed her to Rockingham General Hospital. According to Lucia's mother Holly, she was saved because of the rapid first-aid treatment.

"What we were told at the hospital was that Mum's actions immediately after had made a massive difference," she told ABC News. "When that phone call came through, that you don't ever want to get, that your child, something's happened … my thought was 'Mum can handle that'."

Holly said the incident has made her feel that learning first-aid treatment is very necessary.

"When you think about getting your first-aid, you think you're going to come across a car accident, or a person at the restaurant is going to have a heart attack and you're going to be needed," she said.

"But that's probably less likely — it's more likely you're going to be using it on someone that you spend a lot of time with, someone you love... So it's definitely worth doing because it can make a big difference."

Stephen Grainger, the emergency physician who attended to Lucia, said applying pressure to the bite area helps the victim.

"Most of the deaths from brown snake bites occur prior to arrival in hospital from cardiac arrest," he said. "The aim of a pressure bandage is to try and slow the spread of venom into the circulation and prevent that early cardiac arrest.

"If the patient does collapse and goes into cardiac arrest, then we know that with good CPR, which you learn in a first-aid course, will greatly improve your outcome and give you a chance of making it to hospital and receiving anti-venom," he added.