Kiwi conservationist Pete Bethune has described the moment he was bitten by a snake in Costa Rica, admitting his “life flashed in front of my eyes” during the near-death experience.
The Earthcare founder was on a patrolling mission in the jungle of Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica when a fer-de-lance snake – the most deadly snakes in Central America – bit him.
“I felt this bang in my calf and I knew straight away it was a snake turned around and this fer de lance snake went crawling away from me and he got a good bite too,” Bethune told 1 NEWS from his hospital bed.
“I got a tonne of poison in me and straight away I went into shock.”
Bethune said he crawled almost three kilometres back to shore but as his condition deteriorated, he was carried by members of his team to the local coastguard ship where he was taken to hospital.
Pete Bethune crawled almost 3km through dense jungle to get help after being bitten in Costa Rica.
“I tried to get one of the guys to carry me but it was too steep,” Bethune said.
“I kept banging my leg, I was burning too much energy just hanging on to this guy so in the end I thought of this technique where I just sat on my bum and used my hands to support my weight and used my good leg, held my bad leg out in front of me and we just covered that two-and-a-half kilometres with just me crawling on my bum.”
Bethune was injected with anti-venom once he reached the hospital.
“I remember saying to the boys get a message out to my girls tell them that I love them sort of like my life flashed in front of my eyes,” Bethune said.
Larisa Kellett, spokesperson for Bethune’s non-profit Earthrace, told RNZ Bethune faces a tough recovery journey.
"He has made it through the night - they've given him anti-biotics but yeah his body is just working really hard to fight off the venom."
It's not the first time Bethune has been injured doing his work - in 2017 he was stabbed in the chest in Brazil.
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