Golfer left 'like a zombie' after being bitten by UK's only deadly snake
A man claims he was bitten by the UK's only deadly snake while foraging for a ball he'd hit off the green - sending him lurching into hospital "like a zombie."
Keen golfer Ben Bishop said he felt an unusually "sharp hot needle" on his right heel while retrieving the ball from among dead wood under the trees while golfing, but didn't think anything of it. The building maintenance worker believes he disturbed the adder, the UK's only venomous snake, while rummaging for his golf ball he hit on the sixth hole.
But just 30 minutes later the 57-year-old said he started struggling to breathe and swallow, erupted in a rash, started sweating and his brain "started to shut down". A concerned golfer, who said he was a retired nurse, quizzed Ben about his symptoms and urged him to go to hospital, convinced he was suffering from anaphylaxis.
His brother and a friend drove him to hospital where doctors put him on oxygen, connected him to heart and lung monitors and gave him adrenaline injections. After his ordeal on September 25, Ben is now urging people to seek medical attention if they start to feel unwell after being bitten or stung.
From Sittingbourne, Kent, Ben said: "It wasn't an obvious 'horror film' snake bite. People have this vision in their minds of two huge fang marks stuck into your flesh but it wasn't like that at all.
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"Snakes have only got little teeth, they don't rip lumps out of you. It's the effect that it has that's the shocking thing. You wouldn't believe that something that apparently is quite minor can lead to your body just shutting down. It's extraordinary."
A man claims he was bitten by the UK's only deadly snake while foraging for a ball he'd hit off the green - sending him lurching into hospital "like a zombie." (Kennedy News and Media)At the time, Ben was out with his brother and a friend on a Kent golf course and as they played the sixth hole he hit the ball into the trees. The golf enthusiast, who has a handicap of 24, went into the bushes and rummaged around for the ball, suddenly feeling a sharp needle-like pain.
After noticing a red puncture wound, Ben emerged from the undergrowth and shrugged it off while continuing his round. But half an hour later he started to feel unwell and decided to abandon the game for a rest near the clubhouse before going to hospital for treatment.
He said: "We'd been playing for about an hour. The plan was to finish the game and then go for a couple of pints down the pub, the usual blokes' golfing day out. I hit the ball with my driver off the tee and the ball went to the left and into the treeline, which is something I often do.
"I was rummaging around in a lot of dead twigs and branches trying to find it and then suddenly I got an unusually sharp hot needle feeling straight in my heel. I swore under my breath and carried on doing what I was doing. My ankle didn't swell up, it was a very small but vivid red puncture wound.
"About half an hour later things started to get really quite bad, I could feel my face going numb. I was struggling to breathe, my lungs didn't want to open. Swallowing was difficult, it felt like I had a tennis ball in the back of my throat.
"My skin went like chicken skin, with very hard lumps all over my body. It felt in places it was very itchy then it felt like I'd been rolling around in stinging nettles. I was shaking and sweaty. My brain couldn't think straight, I was struggling to make sense of anything.
"If you look up anaphylaxis on the NHS website it lists all the symptoms and one by one I got them all. An old chap on his own who finished his game of golf walked towards me and said 'are you alright? I'm a retired nurse and I can tell you now you must get to A&E'.
"I'm not a religious person, but it felt like a guardian angel because at the time I would have just sat there possibly until I wasn't capable of phoning my mates up. They dropped me off [at hospital] and then declared there were no parking spaces so they went to the pub."
At the minor injuries unit at Memorial Hospital in Sittingbourne, Kent, doctors treated Ben before referring him to Medway Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, for further monitoring. The golfer said: "I stumbled into the minor injuries unit like a zombie. There were loads of people sat in the waiting room and I remember they were all looking at me horrified because I must have looked like I was on drugs or paralytic drunk.
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"I got to the reception desk, I leaned on the counter and my face was mashed against the perspex screen. The lady took a couple of details from me and when I said I'd been told I had anaphylactic shock medical people appeared from everywhere.
"They instantly bundled me into a room and gave me oxygen and adrenaline injections and I was on heart and lung monitors. It was there that they raised the idea of it being an adder bite after looking at the puncture wound and where I said I'd been, the diagnosis was the same at Medway."
After being thoroughly checked out, Ben was discharged later that evening with a week-long course of antibiotics and recovered at home. Friends from his golf society presented Ben with a rubber snake to wind him up on December 12.
Now he's urging if anyone gets bitten or stung by a mystery critter to get it checked out straight away. Ben said: "I'm fit as a fiddle now and still golfing but for a few weeks I was very wary going near any undergrowth. A chap I work for asked me to find a water main in a load of bushes outside his house and I remember thinking 'that looks like the perfect place for adders to live'.
"Now if the ball leaves the green I take a penalty and hit a second ball rather than go looking for the first one. My advice is to get medical help straight away, you need to get treated quickly. The sooner they can get to you the easier it will all be."
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