British tourist bitten by venomous snake at yoga session in Cyprus

‘My leg was burning and throbbing the pain was instant’

A BRITISH tourist has described the intense “burning” pain she experienced after being bitten by a large venomous snake while practising yoga on holiday in Cyprus.

Sam West had travelled to a resort near Paphos with her wife, Kate, to celebrate her 40th birthday.

She was just about to step on to a meditation platform at the Atlantica Aphrodite Hills Hotel on April 3 when she was bitten by the 5ft-long snake, believed to be a blunt-nosed viper.

“Quickly, before I had time to react, it bit me just above my left ankle,” said the 40-year-old from Shifnal in Shropshire.

“I started to shake the snake off as I shouted that I had just been bitten. My leg was burning and throbbing, the pain was instantaneous,” she told the BBC.

Ms West, who runs a hairdressing salon in Telford, was taken to hospital where doctors administered an antidote.

She spent the next four days in intensive care and another day in a regular ward before being discharged.

She is now in a wheelchair and has had to pay €310 (£260) a night for a hotel room with disabled access.

She is hoping that her insurance company will cover the costs of the hotel and also fly her back to Britain.

Ms West said that the hotel had trimmed back some vegetation around the meditation platform and that yoga activities had been moved to a dance studio.

Her travel company, Tui, said it was liaising “directly with the guest to provide our full support”.

Blunt-nosed vipers, also known by the name Macrovipera lebetinus, are found not just in Cyprus but across North Africa and the Middle East.

In advice to British military personnel serving on the UK’S two sovereign bases on Cyprus, the Ministry of Defence says: “This strong snake can grow up to 2m long.

“It has small cat-like eyes and fangs at the front of the mouth. The viper’s venom can be toxic to humans and the victim should receive immediate firstaid and medical assistance.”

A local travel website describes the blunt-nosed viper as “the bad boy of the island’s snakes … the only potentially lethal snake in Cyprus”.

It notes, however, that fatalities are extremely rare.

Each year about 40 people are admitted to hospital in Cyprus with venomous snake bites, according to a study in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology.

In the 18 years between 2000 and 2018, there were just two recorded deaths from snake bites in Cyprus, a 73-year-old man and a woman of 77.