1 month ago
.png)
A British tourist has been left in intensive care after being bitten by a venomous snake during a meditation session while on holiday to Cyprus to mark her 40th birthday.
Sam West, 40, from Shifnal, in Shropshire, was bitten by a 5ft-long blunt nosed viper on April 3 as she was getting ready to start a meditation session at the Atlantica Aphrodite Hills hotel.
'It quickly, before I had time to react, bit me just above my left ankle. I started to shake the snake off as I shouted that I had just been bitten by a snake,' she told the BBC.
'My leg was burning and throbbing, the pain was instantaneous,' she added. Hotel staff quickly came to her aid and she was taken to A&E, where she was told she urgently needed anti-venom.
Ms West, who is on holiday in Cyprus with her wife, had to spent four days in intensive care and another in a different ward until she was finally discharged to the hotel with medication last Monday.
Sam West (pictured), 40, from Shifnal, in Shropshire, was bitten by a 1.5m-long blunt nosed viper on April 3 as she was getting ready to start a meditation session at the Atlantica Aphrodite Hills hotel
'It quickly, before I had time to react, bit me just above my left ankle. I started to shake the snake off as I shouted that I had just been bitten by a snake,' she told the BBC
Ms West, who is on holiday in Cyprus with her wife, had to spent four days in intensive care and another in a different ward until she was finally discharged to the hotel with medication last Monday
She has since relied on a wheelchair to get around after pictures showed her leg being severely bruised and swollen due to the snake bite.
Ms West is now paying £260 a night for a room with disabled-access and is currently waiting on an update from her insurance company on when she could fly back to the UK after not being fit to fly until today.
Ms West said the hotel had cut back the area around the meditation platform where she was bitten and has repeatedly called pest control.
In addition, meditation session have since been moved to the hotel's dance studio.
She reportedly received more than 350 messages since the incident and was being supported by TUI staff, who also came to help her immediately after she was bitten.
TUI UK & Ireland told the BBC that it was 'aware' of Ms West getting bitten by a viper at the hotel, adding that the safety of the guests was the company's 'highest priority'.
