Falco Faber returned to his Adelaide home after a trip to NZ – and stepped on an eastern brown snake. Video / Falco Faber
A Kiwi man living in South Australia had a brush with death after he returned from a trip home and promptly stepped on the world’s second-most venomous land snake.
A security camera captured the moment Folco Faber returned to Adelaide yesterday and greeted his cat Lily, picking her up for a cuddle before opening up his blinds as he made himself at home.
An unaware Folco Faber cuddles his cat Lily inside his Adelaide home, as an eastern brown snake lurks nearby. Photo / Folco Faber
The video shows the moment he stood on a deadly eastern brown snake, placing his socked foot just behind the viper’s head as he continue to hold his cat.
Folco Faber steps on an eastern brown snake inside his Adelaide home. Photo / Folco Faber
The snake did not immediately strike and it took another 20 seconds before Faber glanced down again — and saw the snake and stepping away at speed, still holding his cat.
Faber told the Herald he had just spent two weeks visiting family in Waiuku and received the “shock of his life” when he saw the reptile.
The moment Folco Faber spotted an eastern brown snake inside his Adelaide home. Photo / Folco Faber
He called a snake catcher to remove the snake but admitted the episode was “really unsettling” and he spent the rest of the day checking under the furniture.
But the snake’s subdued reaction may have had something to do with its own ordeal.
Faber told the Herald his cat, Lily, was lucky to have survived inside the house with the snake, but said the snake catcher noted something about the snake: it had suffered a number of cat bites.
The eastern brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) is known to feed on rodents and so is often found near homes and farms in Australia, where it is responsible for more snakebite deaths than any of its venomous cousins.
It produces less venom than other venomous Australians but its bite packs a significant punch, causing rapid onset of symptoms such as nausea, pain, and seizures. Death from cardiac arrest and intracranial haemorrhage often follows.
