Baby eastern brown bite leaves man in life-threatening condition

The exact moment a man suffered multiple snake bites on his hand has been caught on camera after he mistakenly identified the reptile as a ‘harmless tree snake’.

A Toowoomba man has issued a grave warning after a “stupid mistake” turned into him being “lucky to be alive”.

On Tuesday night, after helping catch a small snake at his sister’s house, Stuart Hickson, in trying to identify it, took a short video and posted it to a snake identification group online.

In the video, he holds a thin brown snake and as it squirms, it bites him multiple times on the hand and towards the wrist.

The video caption reads: “I’m 99 per cent sure this is a tree snake, but I want to confirm as it bit me a few times”.

Within an hour he was fighting for his life in the back of an ambulance.

The response from the group was swift and immediate – call an ambulance and get to hospital, as the snake was apparently a juvenile eastern brown, one of the deadliest in Australia.

“This group literally saved my life, and while I’ll take the laughs at my expense, I have a young family and I’m alive – that’s what really matters,” he posted in an update to the snake identification group on Wednesday night.

He called paramedics 25 minutes after being bitten, and thankfully, the ambulance arrived within a few minutes.

At that time, he wasn’t showing any symptoms and said he “felt embarrassed for wasting their time”.

“But they immediately bandaged my arms tightly and calmly started the trip to the hospital,” he wrote in the post.

That was at 9.55pm, about 45 minutes after he had been bitten.

“Five minutes into the trip, the symptoms hit fast and hard,” he wrote.

In a matter of moments, the paramedics had to call in a critical response team, ten minutes later they pulled over as he was almost entirely unresponsive.

“Even though I couldn’t respond, I could hear everything, and it was clear how stressed the paramedics were as they struggled to find veins due to my blood flow slowing down,” he wrote.

A Toowoomba man has recounted the moments after he was bitten by a what he thought was a "harmless tree snake" on Tuesday night, December 14, 2025.

A Toowoomba man has recounted the moments after he was bitten by a what he thought was a "harmless tree snake". Tuesday, December 14, 2025.

“It’s all a bit of a blur from there.”

He was then given a number of antivenoms for most venomous snake bites in Australia.

“I knew I was in a bad shape, but I didn’t realise just how bad,” he wrote.

“I learned today that I went into peri-arrest and was in critical condition.

“The hospital staff told me I’m lucky to be alive, which is both sobering and deeply humbling – especially as someone with a young family.

“One of the senior paramedics even said it was the worst snake bite reaction he’d seen in his long career.

“I’m still in ICU but feeling much better now and hopeful I’ll be out tomorrow.

“Lesson learned, and I hope others can learn from my mistake too.

Originally published as Baby eastern brown bite leaves man in life-threatening condition