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A British man (22) has died after being bitten by a sea snake in Australia while working on a fishing trawler.
Northern Territory Police said the man was bitten while pulling up a net while working off Groote Eylandt, 400 miles east of Darwin, on Thursday afternoon.
A helicopter crew was summoned, and the trawler made its way to Borroloola, inland from the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the victim was pronounced dead, police added.
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Craig Garraway, from St John Ambulance, told ABC News: “A trawler off Groote Eylandt had reported that one of their male crewmen had been bitten by a sea snake.
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“The Groote Island health clinic and police responded to the trawler, but unfortunately the male passed away at some point yesterday afternoon.”
Inquiries are continuing and a postmortem will be carried out.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who had died in the Northern Territory and are in contact with the Australian authorities.”
It is the second death of a British man while working on a fishing boat in the north of the country in five years.
In November 2013 a 20-year-old UK-born man died while working on a prawn trawler. – PA