St Helens boy Yani Glowacki-Smith was discharged after a snake bite near his home

The young boy was playing in a grassy woodland area a few hundred metres away from his St Helens home, when he was bitten by a snake.

Yani's father Wolfgang Glowacki said the snake bite happened quickly.

"He was sliding down an embankment and startled the snake, the snake turned around and just had a quick snap at him," Mr Glowacki said.

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Young Yani returned home almost immediately, and Mr Glowacki quickly rushed him to the nearby St Helens District Hospital.

"Between the snake bite, getting to the hospital and then getting on the plane it couldn't have been more than 20 minutes," Mr Glowacki said.

"The staff at St Helens made the decision pretty quickly to get him transferred to the Launceston General Hospital because they weren't sure whether it was a dry bite [where no venom was injected] or not.

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"Yani was really good throughout the whole ordeal - he was a bit upset initially at St Helens because nobody was sure what it was, but it was better to be safe than sorry."

Treated as a potential snake bite, Mr Glowacki said staff put Yani straight onto monitoring equipment, and that he was admitted directly at the LGH emergency department on arrival.

"They monitored him consistently, and did blood checks every four hours," he said.

"At about 2am they moved him into the pediatric ward and they continued to monitor him.

"He was discharged at around 11am."

Mr Glowacki said that while he, Yani and family were shaken - and lacking in sleep after the ordeal, they returned back to St Helens on Monday afternoon.

"We're all pretty exhausted, so I think it'll be a takeaway and early bed night," he said.

"Yani will be back at school as normal."

With the family safely back at home, Mr Glowacki wanted to send his thanks to everyone involved with the frightening incident.

"I have nothing but wonderful things to say about everyone," he said.

"Everyone handled it so smoothly, so professionally - the staff at St Helens District Hospital and the Launceston General Hospital were so wonderful.

"We really couldn't be more grateful for their assistance."

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