Sydney, March 8 :

An Australian man lived it up with a chilled beer as his last indulgence after being bitten by a venomous snake last month, media reported Saturday.

After the snake bit him, 54-year-old Rod Sommerville opened his fridge, grabbed a beer and called an ambulance as he thought he was anyway going to succumb to the deadly bite, the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin reported.

Rod Sommerville ( pic : brisbanetimes.com.au) Rod Sommerville ( pic : brisbanetimes.com.au)

He preferred not to alarm his son who slept next to him.

"If you panic it makes it worse," he was quoted as saying.

Sommerville got bitten by a two-and-half-foot snake while gardening in the backyard of his home at Yeppoon, a coastal town in the Australian state of Queensland.

"I said to myself, if I'm going to cark it (Australian for dying) I'm going to have a beer, so I got a Goldie out of the fridge and drank that; 'cause you know Eastern Browns are the second most venomous snake in the world," Sommerville said.

He was taken straight to the Yeppoon Hospital but transferred a short while later to Rockhampton to get the anti-venom.

But his ordeal was not over just yet as he suffered from an allergic reaction to the anti-venom and ended up spending four days in intensive care.

Sommerville is still not out of hospital after three weeks.

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

His kidneys were affected and that is what has kept him in hospital recovering for weeks.

(IANS)