Golfer left ‘like a zombie’ after being bitten by UK’s only poisonous snake

Golfer Ben Bishop was left ‘like a zombie’ after being bitten by an adder (Picture: Kennedy News & Media)

A golfer claims he was left lurching ‘like a zombie’ after being bitten by the UK’s only poisonous snake while searching for a stray ball he’d hit into the green.

Ben Bishop said he felt an unusually ‘sharp hot needle’ on his right heel while retrieving the ball from among dead wood under the trees while golfing, but didn’t think anything of it.

But just 30 minutes later, the 57-year-old said he found himself sweating profusely, struggling to breathe and swallow, and felt his brain ‘starting to shut down.’

After finding himself feeling increasingly ill, Ben abandoned the game and retired to the clubhouse, where a concerned ‘guardian angel’ golfer, who said he was a retired nurse, quizzed Ben about his symptoms and urged him to go to hospital, convinced he was suffering from anaphylaxis.

Heeding the advice, Ben’s brother and pal bundled him into a car and drove him to hospital where doctors put him on oxygen, strapped him up to heart and lung monitors and gave him adrenaline injections.

They later suggested he was likely bitten by an adder- a type of poisonous snake which can be found in long grass and undergrowth throughout the UK.

Ben, a building maintenance worker from Sittingbourne, Kent, said: ‘It wasn’t an obvious “horror film” snake bite.

Ben was bitten by the reptile while rummaging for a golf ball in the undergrowth (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)

‘People have this vision in their minds of two huge fang marks stuck into your flesh but it wasn’t like that at all.

‘Snakes have only got little teeth, they don’t rip lumps out of you. It’s the effect that it has that’s the shocking thing.

‘You wouldn’t believe that something that apparently is quite minor can lead to your body just shutting down. It’s extraordinary.’

He added: ‘We’d been playing for about an hour. The plan was to finish the game and then go for a couple of pints down the pub, the usual blokes’ golfing day out.

‘I hit the ball with my driver off the tee and the ball went to the left and into the treeline, which is something I often do.

‘I was rummaging around in a lot of dead twigs and branches trying to find it and then suddenly I got an unusually sharp hot needle feeling straight in my heel.

‘I swore under my breath and carried on doing what I was doing. My ankle didn’t swell up, it was a very small but vivid red puncture wound.

He was saved by a ‘guardian angel’ golfer who told him to head to A&E, where they said he was suffering from anaphylaxis (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)

‘About half an hour later things started to get really quite bad, I could feel my face going numb.

‘I was struggling to breathe, my lungs didn’t want to open. Swallowing was difficult, it felt like I had a tennis ball in the back of my throat.

‘My skin went like chicken skin, with very hard lumps all over my body. It felt in places it was very itchy then it felt like I’d been rolling around in stinging nettles.

‘I was shaking and sweaty. My brain couldn’t think straight, I was struggling to make sense of anything.

‘If you look up anaphylaxis on the NHS website it lists all the symptoms and one by one I got them all.

‘An old chap on his own who finished his game of golf walked towards me and said “are you alright? I’m a retired nurse and I can tell you now you must get to A&E”.

‘I’m not a religious person, but it felt like a guardian angel because at the time I would have just sat there possibly until I wasn’t capable of phoning my mates up.

Ben has since recovered and his fellow golfers bought him a rubber snake to joke abou the incident (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)

At the minor injuries unit at Memorial Hospital in Sittingbourne, Kent, doctors treated Ben before referring him to Medway Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, for further monitoring.

Ben said: ‘I stumbled into the minor injuries unit like a zombie.

‘There were loads of people sat in the waiting room and I remember they were all looking at me horrified because I must have looked like I was on drugs or paralytic drunk.

‘I got to the reception desk, I leaned on the counter and my face was mashed against the perspex screen.

‘The lady took a couple of details from me and when I said I’d been told I had anaphylactic shock medical people appeared from everywhere.

‘They instantly bundled me into a room and gave me oxygen and adrenaline injections and I was on heart and lung monitors.

‘It was there that they raised the idea of it being an adder bite after looking at the puncture wound and where I said I’d been, the diagnosis was the same at Medway.’

After being thoroughly checked out, Ben was discharged later that evening with a week-long course of antibiotics and recovered at home.

Pals from his golf society presented Ben with a rubber snake to wind him up on December 12.

Now he’s urging if anyone gets bitten or stung by a mystery critter to get it checked out straight away.

Ben said: ‘I’m fit as a fiddle now and still golfing but for a few weeks I was very wary going near any undergrowth.

‘My advice is to get medical help straight away, you need to get treated quickly.

‘The sooner they can get to you the easier it will all be.’

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Ben Bishop was rummaging for a golf ball in some long grass when he was attacked by an adder.