Deadly Snake Bite and Imminent Death Not Enough to Keep Aussie Man From His Beer

Imagine being bitten by the world's second most poisonous land snake, what do you do? Panic probably, and call an ambulance.

One Australian remained decidedly calm when he was bitten however, deciding instead to take it easy, call an ambulance and wait for it with a cold can of beer for company.

"If you panic it makes it worse," explained Rod Somerville to the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin. "I said to myself, 'if I'm going to cark it I'm going to have a beer', so I got a Goldie [XXXX Gold] out of the fridge and drank that."

The 54-year-old was bitten on the finger by a deadly Eastern Brown Snake while gardening at his home in Yeppoon.

Eastern browns are responsible for more deaths in Australia than any other group of snakes.

Maybe Somerville acted as calmly as he did because in Australia everything - from snakes to sharks to spiders to alligators - is trying to kill you anyway.

Lucky enough to make it to the hospital things only got worse for Rod, who suffered an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and had to spend an additional four days in intensive care.

"The reaction nearly killed me as well," he said. "So it was a double-whammy."

After three weeks in hospsital, Somerville is doing fine and will return home shortly.

In January a man in New Zealand was attacked by a shark, but instead of going straight to hospital, he stitched his own leg up and went to the pub.