Woman suffers snake bite after eastern brown gets caught in her shoe

A woman is recovering from multiple snake bites after a highly poisonous reptile got stuck in her shoe button.

Snake catcher Cory Kerewaro received “terrible” call after paramedics failed to treat woman; The snake somehow got into the loop of fabric on the back of his shoe and got “completely stuck.”

The snake catcher said the incident in Sydney’s south-west was “without a doubt the strangest call I have ever attended”.

“The moment I saw it I confirmed 100 percent that it was an eastern brown snake. What I saw next was something I still can’t quite believe… the chances of this happening are almost zero. It was absolutely unreal,” he wrote on social media.

Eastern brown snakes are the second most venomous snake in the world, having the power to kill more than 200,000 mice with a single bite.

Realizing the danger of the situation, Mr Kerewaro said “everything changed” when the woman stood on the road on a 38C day.

“It wasn’t adrenaline anymore, it was a sudden feeling of heaviness. Reality hit hard,” he said.

“Brown snakes are highly responsive when stressed and there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to approach safely and no room for error. “Any sudden movement could have caused the snake to react.

“If it reacts, it may bite him, and if it bites, the consequences could be fatal.”

Luckily, he was given a “small window” where the snake was less likely to react due to heat, and Mr Kerewaro was able to achieve this.

“The snake was compressed so tightly that it could not be moved forward or backward, the only option was to cut open the heel loop to release it,” he said.

“When he was finally free, the relief was overwhelming.”

The woman was geocaching and looking at a garden bed when she “felt something touch her leg, ran to the road, looked down and realized there was a snake in her shoe”.

The woman suffered multiple snake bites during the ordeal but was treated and is currently recovering in hospital.