Australian field hockey player dies after snake bite, then training run

DARWIN, Australia – A field hockey player has died after being bitten by a venomous king brown snake in Australia’s tropical north and proceeding to go for a 2-kilometre (1.2-mile) training run.

Fairfax Newspapers reported Friday that 26-year-old Karl Berry was cleaning up at Marrara Hockey Centre in Darwin, Northern Territory, on Tuesday when he picked up a snake, thinking it was a non-venomous python, and threw it into bushes.

Berry, captain of the Commerce-Pints hockey team, was bitten on the hand but did not realize the bite was poisonous and embarked on a run.

He later collapsed and Craig Garraway, St John’s Ambulance operations manager, was quoted as saying Berry was conscious when paramedics arrived, but took up to 15 minutes to mention he had been bitten by a snake. He died Wednesday.

“He had gone for a two-kilometre run which pumped the venom around his system much faster,” Garraway said.