A Queensland boy has been critically injured in a toad hunting accident that saw him hit in the head with a golf club.
The 13-year-old’s friends frantically performed CPR after the boy was struck near a former Maroochydore golf course about 7.30pm on Saturday.
Paramedics rushed the boy to Nambour hospital in a critical condition and he was then flown to Brisbane’s Lady Cilento children’s hospital.
Police said it was an accident and there were no suspicious circumstances.
The ambulance service said the boy suffered a significant head injury. He was injured in Hazeltine Court, which runs along one boundary of the former Horton Park golf course site.
The grandmother of one of the boy’s mates said the injured teen’s mother was devastated.
“She called my grandson yesterday and she was absolutely distraught,” the woman, who did not want to be named, told the Courier-Mail. “We are all pretty shocked.”
The grandmother said the boy was a student at Maroochydore state high school.
The RSPCA has repeatedly appealed to Queenslanders intent on killing cane toads not to hit them with golf clubs or cricket bats, saying such methods rarely kill the pests. Its guidelines stress that only “confident and skilled operators with the correct equipment and technique” should consider stunning and decapitation as a means of controlling toads.
