A near-fatal strike from an eastern brown did not make Kasey Leadbetter stop loving snakes, but more than a year after her brush with death she would like to see improvements in the way bites are treated.

The 22-year-old was working as a nanny on a rural property in Glenmorgan, about 250 kilometres west of Toowoomba, on the Western Downs, when she was bitten on the hand as she slept.

The LifeFlight crew photographed the snake peeking out from under Ms Leadbetter's bedding as rescuers rushed to save her life.

"The [man] who did my first aid was over within a minute — I was already laying on the floor," she said.

The medical crew had a polyvalent antivenom on hand but it could not be given to Ms Leadbetter.

"I was told that I was too unwell at the time to actually be administered with t

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