{"id":803325,"date":"2026-07-16T05:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803325\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T05:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:51:12","slug":"cyclist-bitten-by-eastern-brown-snake-caught-in-her-bike-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803325\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclist bitten by eastern brown snake caught in her bike chain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman is recovering after she was bitten by an eastern brown snake that became tangled in her bike chain in northern NSW.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The woman, in her 60s, was riding on the Northern Rivers Rail Trail near Burringbar in the Tweed Shire yesterday when she ran over the two-metre snake. \u00a0<\/p>\n

NSW Ambulance said paramedics were called to the incident near Upper Burringbar Road about 1pm.<\/p>\n

\"snake<\/p>\n

The injured snake had to be euthanased once it was disentangled. (Supplied: I’ll Catch It Snake Relocations)<\/p>\n

An Ambulance spokesperson said the woman was bitten on the thigh and taken to Tweed Valley Hospital in a stable condition.<\/p>\n

Eastern brown snakes are among the world’s most deadly but it was the bike rider’s lucky day, coincidentally a day before World Snake Day, and the reptile’s bite failed to deliver venom.<\/p>\n

The Northern NSW Local Health District said she was released from hospital early today.<\/p>\n

\"rail<\/p>\n

The Tweed Shire rail trail runs through farmland and bush (Supplied: VisitNSW)<\/p>\n

Tricky operation freeing the snake\u00a0<\/p>\n

Snake catcher Sarah Mailey was called and said disentangling the snake from the bike was difficult and dangerous, with its mid-section trapped but the top half free and “very active”.<\/p>\n

“So it had its full head swinging around able to bite and there was a few people that were standing there sort of just watching,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Mailey said she pinned the snake’s head to prevent it biting her while police and other bystanders disentangled it.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Snake catcher Sarah Mailey says rail trail users should carry compression bandages. (Supplied: Sarah Mailey)<\/p>\n

Then she euthanased it “because it was in a lot of pain”.<\/p>\n

Ms Mailey said the snake had a pre-existing eye injury and possibly did not see the bike approaching.<\/p>\n

She said it was not uncommon for snakes to be on the rail trail and advised users to carry compression bandages.<\/p>\n

“It’s a beautiful part of our region and obviously they’ve just put the trail straight through the middle of it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So the snakes aren’t going to go, ‘Oh well, I’m leaving now’. It’s their home. They’re still going to be there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman is recovering after she was bitten by an eastern brown snake that became tangled in her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28222,784,43,44,4036,135007,376330,41,39,42,40,338],"class_list":["post-803325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accident","tag-cycling","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-snake","tag-snakebite","tag-snakebite-on-a-bike","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}