The Last Snake Man Read online

  Making antivenom is complicated but simple. A horse is injected with enough venom to give them a headache, probably. And then they slowly build up the doses, so that the horse develops enough antibodies to be fully immune. Their blood is then processed to isolate the antivenom. They rest the horse for a while and then repeat the process, but eventually they retire the horse to the paddocks.

  It works with humans too. Theoretically they could have used Pop’s blood to make antivenom, although that would have been for tiger snakes rather than browns or taipans. He’d been bitten so many times by tigers he’d become immune. A lot of snake men did. As I said earlier, a lot of them thought their antidote was saving their lives. They knew nothing about antibodies or that it was their previous bites saving them.

  To prove this, a few years ago now, Charlie Tanner, a great snake man and a friend of the family, was injected with tiger snake venom by a chap from Melbourne University by the name of Dr Saul Wiener, who had already made the red-back spider antivenom. In the end Charlie was fully immune to tiger snake venom—enough to kill a dozen people would give him nothing more than a headache. And as long as they kept giving him little bites, that tolerance lasted forever.

  By and large, the venom from different snakes carries different toxins, and some of the most venomous ones need their own specific antivenoms. Bites from other snakes with the same sort of venom, but nowhere near as toxic, can also be protective. There is a polyvalent antivenom for when they can’t identify which snake the bite is from. It has saved people’s lives, but it’s not as effective as the specific antivenom.

  I’ve read and heard it said on TV documentaries that snakes are immune to some forms of snake venom. This may be true for some, but it’s also common knowledge that when some snakes bite themselves, a large swelling comes up on their bodies and can last for days. Years ago Mike Willesee made a documentary about me and Graeme Gow—I think it was called ‘Deadly Australians’. Mike flew us out with his team to some red soil country out from Coffs Harbour. We took with us a large cranky mulga snake (king brown). It was a hot day and after a few takes the mulga went crazy, striking at anything and everything in range and accidentally bit himself savagely on the back. The snake soon became quite groggy and I soaked him in the Bellinger River for a while. We called the filming off and returned to Sydney. The mulga died the next day. There’s no doubt in my mind it was the massive dose of its own venom that did it.

  The inland taipan, or fierce snake, which is restricted to the corner country of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, is by far the most dangerous snake in terms of the potency of its venom. It’s the most venomous snake in the world without dispute. And then comes the coastal taipan, the New Guinea subspecies of which was named Oxyuranus scutellatus canni, after my dad.

  A lot of experts have said that genetically this subspecies is virtually the same as the coastal taipan, but I think there’s a lot more to the identification of different species than genetics. They can be morphologically, or physically, different, even down to the venom. This is an argument I’m having to this day over turtles. As advanced as genetics has become, I think there’s still a lot to be understood. Many reptiles have been scientifically accepted as a different species when as far as we can tell their genetic make-up is identical.

  Not only do different snakes species have different venom and different behaviours, but they’re individually different too. Some snakes are characteristically quiet, while others are very aggressive, although I think ‘defensive’ is a more appropriate term. If it feels threatened, any snake can turn aggressive. Although, if roused, the brown snake and coastal taipan are more likely to attack, to some degree any snake is liable to strike if you really irritate it, like treading on it. The tiger snake is up there too, but the brown snake is the most defensive–aggressive of all our snakes and has a larger effective range, as it will strike with the full length of its body.

  Snakeys cared more about the disposition of their snakes than the breed. Many snake handlers wouldn’t work with animals that were too fresh and lively—it’s difficult to talk to the public and manage an aggressive snake at the same time. But pretty much all species quieten down tremendously after a while, and then you can handle them. In the old days, some snakeys had tiger and black snakes that had calmed so much they could put them around their necks or put their heads in their mouths, albeit with great care. Those tricks, which would never be done now, were performed by at least three of the early showmen I know of—and one of them was my pop…until a black snake bit him on the tongue. His mouth swelled badly and Mum had to feed him soup or water through a straw for days.

  When I showed at La Perouse, I used to always use fresh snakes, just like Pop and my brother George did, because like them I didn’t want people to see quiet snakes and think anyone could pick them up. I wanted them to see the danger. And I always had mad browns and mad tiger snakes so people could realise what they could really do.

  I have a video of the last public show I ever did at the Loop in 2010. I took down my liveliest tiger snake, one that I only used to show now and then because he scared me. He was too good for me. As I picked him up, I explained to the crowd how dangerous he was.

  ‘You know, people imagine they can hold the snake up and think they’re better than the snake,’ I said. ‘Never. If the snake wants you, he’s got you. And here’s a typical example. I’ll tell you what this snake’s gonna do. He’ll wriggle, like this, he’ll come halfway up, and then he’ll bite me on the wrist if he can.’

  And that’s exactly what happened. He wriggled, he came up, and he went straight for my wrist with his mouth open, but I rolled him over, and when he came down he was already in the bag. I wouldn’t give him another go. I did my last ever show for the police down near Coogee Beach with my mate Andrew Melrose in 2016, and by then the mad tiger had settled down.

  They train people in how to pick snakes up, but I never would. There are enough instruments and gadgets around that a person never needs to touch a snake to catch it. Some people say, ‘You’ve got to learn to handle it, how it feels’, but a number of learners and trainers have been bitten, and one nearly died, ironically by teaching people how to hold snakes.

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘HE GOT ME!’

  I never developed resistance to snakebite. In fact, I went the opposite way: I became allergic to both the venom and the antivenom. The slightest trace of poison I received really knocked me rotten.

  I’ve been bitten probably six times in my life, with a good number of close shaves. The first time, when I was in my early teens, I’d gone snaking with my dad, Ken Slater and Eric West down on the Murray River near Albury. Eric had a small reptile zoo at Tocumwal. Ken’s introduction to snakes was via being a ‘volunteer’ at one of Pop’s shows, where he had a carpet snake draped around his neck. It would be twenty years before they even exchanged names, but he’d got the ‘reptile bug’ and later become the first wildlife officer of Papua New Guinea. It was Ken who identified the New Guinea taipan and named it after Pop. Like me, Ken took every opportunity to go snaking with him.

  We were out on this expedition when a tiger snake bit me on the hand as I was putting him in a bag. About five minutes later I walked up to the old man who was about 40 metres away and he took one look at me and said, ‘You’ve been bitten, haven’t you?’

  When I said, ‘Yeah,’ he spun me around and kicked me up the tail. ‘I told you, if it’s too good, let him go.’

  ‘How come he bit you?’ Ken Slater asked, having a go at me, as they were driving me to Albury Hospital.

  When the doctor went to give me the antivenom, he missed and it went all up the outside of my arm. Ken was a great snake man and scientist, and he had antivenom in an ice box to keep it cold, so the hospital used ours. But Ken went off his brain, telling the doctor what he was doing wrong and how antivenom was too valuable to waste.

  Eventually the doctor said, ‘Get out or I’ll have you thrown out!’ />
  ‘Okay,’ Ken said. ‘We’re going outside. Just don’t lose it this time or they’ll report you, and if anything happens to John, it’ll be on you.’

  The next day I was out and I was all right.

  Two days later Ken did a show at Eric’s place on the way to Tocumwal, and was bitten by a tiger snake. Now it was his turn to go to Tocumwal Hospital for antivenom. We went to visit him and I sat on the bed.

  ‘Ken, how come he bit you?’ I asked.

  ‘Piss off, you little smartarse,’ he replied.

  On the way back, we pulled up at a place called Tallangatta on the Murray River. It’s under water now—they built another town when the Hume Dam was expanded and they raised the water level. Pop, Ken and I were in Ken’s big Land Rover station wagon with all our camping gear jammed in the back right up to the back of the three seats in the front. Ken was driving and I was next to the passenger door, wearing shorts and a light T-shirt. Pop was in the middle, with his hat on as always.

  We’d been through a paddock and got tangled up with some barbed wire, which had ripped the brake hose out so we had no brakes. We needed to get to a garage to get that all fixed but in the meantime we were trundling along, Ken using the gears to slow us down if need be. Suddenly he sings out: ‘There’s that brown snake, George.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Pop. ‘What brown snake?’

  ‘Behind me,’ says Ken, looking in the rear-view mirror. Pop and I looked around to see a 5-foot brown snake, mouth open, right behind Ken’s head. It was one we’d caught that must have escaped from its bag—and it wasn’t happy. Quick as a flash, the old man whipped his hat off and flicked it sideways at the snake, which bit into the brim.

  The next thing, Dad threw the snake at the windscreen. I was already scared, but when the snake hit the windscreen and dropped into my lap, I was petrified. Normally a brown snake would have gone mad and bitten the three of us several times until it got free—and this one was a big bugger—but I suppose he must have been stunned because he went into the little channel that the Land Rover has instead of a dashboard then he came along the windowsill. I was sitting stock-still with the snake right next to my face.

  ‘Out the window. Get him out the window,’ says Pop, but I wasn’t moving. Then the brown snake stuck its head out the side window, which in a Land Rover slides from front to back. So I pushed more of his body through and shoom! I slid the window onto his tail. Ken dropped down through the gears and used the hand brake to stop the vehicle. And we got out and got the snake in the bag.

  ‘And tie the bag friggin properly this time,’ Pop said to Ken. But we laughed and laughed even though that thing could have bitten us a hundred times.

  Every snakebite is different. The next time I got bitten it was by what they call a rough-scaled snake, also known as a Clarence River snake, because that’s where they’re most common. It’s a very, very deadly snake. I was doing a free show for the Boy Scouts near Rylstone, just out from Mudgee, when the rough-scaled bit me on the finger. I put a tourniquet on, which was the done thing in those days (nowadays the advice is to apply a 15-centimetre-wide bandage to the full length of the affected limb under even pressure). The pain was terrible and after a while I took the tourniquet off. Straight away I got a lump up under my arm, from a swollen lymph node.

  I thought I would be okay because I wasn’t getting stomach cramps and I was only coughing up a little bit of blood. So we went back to where we were staying, at my mate Doug Kirkness’s house. I went outside because I felt a bit crook, and a lot more blood came out of my mouth. I came back inside, feeling wonky, and said to Barry Nichol, another friend who was with us, ‘Barry, I’m crook. I’m bringing up a bit of blood.’

  Doug said we should go to the hospital but I said, ‘No, we’re going home to Sydney.’ So Barry and I jumped in the car and headed homewards, but I felt really crook again and big lumps of blood came up out of my throat when I coughed.

  ‘Pull up,’ I said. ‘You’d better take me to hospital.’

  So we went back and saw Doug, and they took me to hospital. It was the worst bite I’ve ever had. I had stomach cramps and couldn’t even talk, so they rang up Eric Worrell at the reptile park as he was our emergency number for snakebites.

  ‘Give him a double dose of antivenom,’ he said, and the doctors gave me tiger snake antivenom. It was a different snake but it was effective against the rough-scaled.

  Although I couldn’t talk, I could hear everything that was going on.

  ‘He’s going,’ I heard Doug say. ‘He’s definitely going. His eyes are turned.’

  I tried to say, ‘Get f…ed!’ They thought I was dying, and I thought I might be too, but, bugger me dead, the next day I was okay to travel and I came home.

  That was when I developed the allergy. At first the hospital thought I had tetanus, but then they realised it was an allergy to the antivenom. I’d been given horse serum the time before, but it’s usually the second time that an allergy develops. The antivenom had dealt with the snakebite okay, but it took stacks of adrenaline and antihistamines for me to overcome the allergy.

  The next bite I had was at La Perouse, from a mad tiger snake. He was in the bag and I was doing it up. I always put the bag against my leg when I’m tying it and this one bit me through the bag and through my jeans. It was a very slight scratch and I said to myself, ‘That was lucky—he never bit me.’ But within about two minutes I felt giddy, and I realised I was so allergic to venom that the slightest amount was going to affect me.

  ‘I’m sorry, folks, I feel a bit crook,’ I told the crowd. ‘I’ve got to go home.’

  I packed up, went home and Helen drove me to the hospital, but I felt like I was in a light plane flying into clouds. By the time I got to Prince Henry Hospital I was totally blind. I’d always thought blindness was everything turning black, but for me it was white.

  Helen got me in and then I collapsed on the floor. She told them I’d been bitten by a snake but at first the nurse and the sister refused to believe her. They pulled my dacks off, couldn’t see any fang marks and decided I must have had a seizure. Finally a doctor who knew me came in.

  ‘If this man said it was a snakebite, it was a snakebite,’ he says. ‘He’s the snake man.’ They gave me antivenom and put me in the intensive care unit, and the next day I was as fit as anything.

  The doctor came in and said, ‘How are you, John?’

  ‘I’m perfect,’ I said, as quick as that, which I was.

  ‘We’ll put you in another ward to see how you are for the day,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but there are people in here dying everywhere and I feel good.’

  While I was waiting to be moved, I decided to go for a walk even though I’ve still got the drip in my arm. As I came back, I could hear the nursing sister laughing her head off.

  ‘You’re not only the first bloke ever to walk out of intensive care,’ she said, ‘you’re the first one I’ve ever seen walking out of the ICU with your drip on you.’

  The last bite I had was from a black snake in December 1993. It’s not a very deadly snake, although people have died in the past before antivenom was around. I came home and I was crook and it was really painful in my arm, so I rang up Struan Sutherland, the top researcher into snakebite venom back then. I told him it was only a black snake so it shouldn’t have affected me so much.

  ‘John, get up to Prince Henry Hospital,’ he said. ‘You’re allergic to venomous snakes. Go to hospital.’

  So I went to the hospital and saw Dr Hockin, the head bloke, and he decided not to give me antivenom, because of my bad reaction in the past.

  ‘But you’d better stop overnight,’ he said. ‘We’ll just watch your arm and see how you go.’

  The hospital was in the process of being closed down at the time, so the number of available wards was restricted and they put me in the infectious diseases ward.

  The next morning a different doctor came along and asked me how I felt.<
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  ‘I’m real good,’ I said.

  ‘Oh well, you can go home if you want to.’

  So I went home but I wasn’t well at all, and my arm started going blue and then purple. I jumped back on the phone to Struan Sutherland.

  ‘John, what have they let you out for?’ he said. ‘Get straight back to Dr Hockin. I’ll ring him and tell him you’re on your way back.’

  Dr Hockin asked me why I said I was okay when I clearly wasn’t.

  ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘you had me in the infectious ward. And all these blokes are coming in and sitting on the bed and saying, “Oh, tell us about your snake bite. What’s it like?” You can’t blame me for wanting to get out, can you?’

  I was there for seven more days in the last of the general wards. The arm was getting really bad, and every day they were marking the spread of the purple colour with a pen. On Christmas Day, the doctor came in and told me they’d got a new antibiotic from Canberra but it was experimental and I had to sign a special authority if I wanted to get it.

  ‘Pass me your pen,’ I said. ‘Where do I sign?’

  An hour after they gave me the shot, the colour had gone down. Another hour and it had gone down even more.

  ‘Do you want to go home for Christmas dinner, John?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘Bloody oath,’ I said.

  That was my last bite. Like I said, every bite affects you in different ways. Some might be really nasty and have you bringing up blood, with pains in the chest and cramps like you couldn’t believe. Other times you might just go to sleep. They give you antivenom and you pull through—unless you’re allergic, like me. The experts told me to get out of the snake game while I still could, but I kept going for another seventeen years, much to the frustration of my family.