‘My heart stopped’: Boy, 8, saves dad’s life after brown snake bite

A YOUNG boy has been hailed a hero for saving his father’s life after he was bitten by one of Australia’s most venomous snakes

Jason Cash with his hero son Max, 8, after Jason was bitten by a brown snake he mistook for a small python. Picture: Glenn Campbell

A YOUNG boy from Lambells Lagoon has been hailed a hero for saving his father’s life after he was bitten by one of Australia’s most venomous snakes.

Jason Cash, 53, said he was moments from death when he was bitten by a brown snake on Tuesday.

The welder was at a tyre store in Humpty Doo when he spotted the highly venomous snake. He mistook it for a non-venomous python and was bitten when he picked it up to move it.

Jason Cash with a brown snake he mistook for a python that bit him. Picture: Max Cash

“I honestly thought it was a python that’s why I let it bite me for as long as it did,” he said.

“It latched on to me and pumped me full of so much venom. I shouldn’t have survived.”

Because he still thought the snake was non-venomous, Mr Cash said he was about to drive home with his son Max but the 8-year-old insisted they go to the doctors.

“The venom hadn’t kicked in yet and I didn’t have any symptoms, so I thought I was fine,” he said.

“But Max convinced me to go to the doctors just in case, so we stopped by a nearby clinic a few minutes later.

“Within a few seconds of us being there, my body just shut down from the poison and I collapsed in the middle of the clinic.

“My heart and lungs stopped. I would have died if a doctor couldn’t get to me straight away.”

He was rushed from the clinic to Royal Darwin Hospital in critical condition.

Jason Cash holding the brown snake. Picture: Max Cash

“The doctor said he hadn’t seen so much venom pumped into someone and live to tell the tale,” he said.

“My son saved my life.

“If I didn’t listen to him, I would have collapsed while I was still driving home at 100km/h and that could have killed both of us.”

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Brown snakes bites are extremely toxic and are known to cause death in just 15 minutes.

Mr Cash said he wanted to use his close call with death to raise awareness about the dangerous snakes in the Darwin rural area.

He’s doing a talk at a school in Humpty Doo next week