Sydney reptile hobbyist Kevin Budden is credited as the man who led the development of the very first taipan antivenom, but he also paid the ultimate price for it.
In July 1950, 20-year-old Mr Budden and two other members of the Australian reptile club travelled to Far North Queensland in search of taipans.
Their goal was to send a live snake to the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) in Melbourne for milking, to produce the first taipan antivenom. Before the 1950's a bite from a taipan mean't certain death.
Mr Budden chanced upon a taipan on July 27 with its head in a rat's nest at a local dump not far from the current Cairns cemetary and seized the opportunity.
With Mr Budden carefully clamping the snake's mouth shut as it wrapped its long body around his arm, he waved down a passing truck and hitchhiked to a friend's house with the snake still within his grip.
But as he attempted to bag his catch, the snake bit him on his leg and hand.
27 hours later, Kevin Budden's disregard for his own safety, and single-minded determination to have the live snake retained for research work cost him his life. With no effective antivenom therapy available, the battle was lost right from the moment the snake struck. All efforts by medical staff at Cairns Base Hospital failed one by one, and he died at 1.30 p.m., on 28 July, 1950. in Cairns hospital.
The bagged live taipan, however, was shipped to Melbourne, where renowned scientist David Fleay successfully milked the reptile to create the first taipan antivenom.
Kevin Clifford Budden, aged 20 years, was buried in the Cairns Cemetery three days later. The Budden family were far from well off, and as if the loss of their beloved son and brother were not enough, financial pressures only made it possible to send only Kevin's sister Dorothy and her husband north.
Besieged by press reporters and others almost from the moment word of Kevin's death arrived, the family suffered their loss dreadfully - Kevin's father never recovered from the boy's death, and died a broken man only seven month's later.
This Geocache is in memory of Kevin Budden who paid the ultimate price so that others could live.
For more information on Kevin Budden go to https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-17/first-taipan-antivenom-kevin-budden-cairns-fatal-bite-milking/102860834