Australian Father Ignores 11-Year-Old Son’s Complaints of Being Bitten by Venomous Snake, Charged After Child Dies

A dad has been charged with manslaughter for not helping his son when he suffered a snake bite in Australia.

According to police, Kerrod Frahm did not take his 11-year-old son Tristian’s pleas for help seriously when he was told that a snake had bitten him in November last year. The child died later that night.

Tristian Bitten by Snake on Friend’s Property

On Tuesday night, police in Queensland charged his dad, 31, with manslaughter, following a year-long investigation into the incident.

Police said Frahm ignored his son’s pleas for help and failed to seek medical attention after Tristian told him a snake had bitten him while visiting a friend’s property in Murgon on November 20 last year. Murgon is a small rural town 260km north of Brisbane.

Frahm and Tristian went to bed some time after the boy told him dad about the snake bite, where his condition quickly deteriorated, The Courier Mail reported.

The Mail reports that Tristian got out of bed during the night to be ill before his lifeless body was found outside the next morning near a shed outside the house.

Frahm’s first court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 6.

Snakebites in Australia

According to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, Australia is home to around species of venomous snakes, but only 12 of them are likely to inflict a wound enough to kill humans. There are about 3,000 snake bites that occur annually in the country. However, only two fatalities from snake bites are recorded on an average every year.

Earlier this year, an 11-year-old boy was hospitalized for three days after being bitten by a highly venomous tiger snake in Australia, as reported by Newsweek. However, the child survived the attack after he was administered antivenom.