Craig Nolte: Man who died from lyssavirus after bat bite identified as 56-year-old tradie
Craig Nolte, who was a carpenter, was reportedly trying to free a bat that had flown onto his balcony when he was bitten on the finger in November 2024.
The 56-year-old, from Ballina in northern NSW, received treatment after the incident, but he later fell into a critical condition, according to NSW Health.
Mr Nolte's wife, Robyn, is now scratching her head over how her husband's health changed so dramatically, claiming he was given the immunoglobulin rabies vaccine that 'didn't work'.
The vaccine is a crucial component of post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies, preventing infection caused by the virus.
Mrs Nolte took to social media to pay tribute to her husband and express her frustration over having few answers around why the vaccine wasn't effective.
'I need to put this out to the community as Craig, Zebbo, was a local and having owned Ballina kiddi care childcare for 18 years, we knew a lot of families,' she wrote.
'Before anyone says anything, yes, 8 months ago Craig got bitten and he got the post-exposure prophylaxis injections.
'NSW health still grappling in their words to how this happened, that the injection didn't work.
'RIP my love, my best friend.'
Extensive exposure wounds close to innervated areas like fingers carry increased infection risk, resulting in a shorter incubation period of the lyssavirus, medical advice says.
The father-of-two was the first confirmed human case of lyssavirus in NSW and only the fourth in the country.
Lyssavirus infections are extremely rare but deadly.
The disease causes severe neurological symptoms similar to rabies and is almost always fatal once symptoms appear.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
7NEWS
6 hours ago
- 7NEWS
John Worsfold and Alicia Molik among sporting greats taking part in Big Freeze event for MND research
An Australian father in the fight of his life against motor neurone disease (MND) is raising funds in the hope doctors can one day find a cure. Jordan Early, from Perth, was diagnosed five months ago and the disease has already ravaged his body, stealing his strength and speech. But the 42-year-old is determined not to let it defeat him. 'MND is not incurable, it's underfunded,' he told 7NEWS. 'If we can raise the money to keep pushing forward, we'll solve this one day.' The father-of-three has set himself the goal of raising $100,000 for research. He is doing it through Jordan's Big Freeze fundraiser, with a group of sporting greats including John Worsfold, Alicia Molik, Andrew Embley and Daisy Pearce to head down a slide into a pool of icy water on Saturday at Claremont Oval. The sliding starts at 1.45pm, prior to the WAFL match between Claremont and Peel at 2.30pm. There will be special coverage on Channel 7. You can go online now to donate and help Jordan achieve his goal.
Perth Now
8 hours ago
- Perth Now
Top docs call for action on speedy e-scooters and bikes
Doctors have thrown their weight behind a push to tackle high-speed electric scooters and bikes, as the national injury and death toll among riders, passengers and pedestrians grows. The Australian Medical Association says a national body is urgently needed to develop an Australia-wide safety strategy and regulations for e-mobility vehicles. "Doctors around the country have seen a massive spike in injuries," emergency medicine representative Sarah Whitelaw told AAP on Thursday. "Complex limb injuries, young people with facial injuries that will impact them for the rest of their lives, chest injuries and brain injuries. "The devastation from patients and their families, who tell us over and over that they just had no idea that they could get so significantly injured." The peak national body for doctors also wants better data capture to help decision makers and for infrastructure that, for example, separates electric mobility devices from pedestrians. A national strategy also needed to recognise the different types of electric rideables and the way they were being used, so that specific policy could be formulated, Dr Whitelaw said. "We need, right now, a national body that's set up to bring all this information together and have a national approach, not this piecemeal state and territory approach," she said. "We're at the very beginning of electric mobility devices in Australia and we are going to see hundreds of thousands more of these devices." From 2016 to 2021, there were 14 deaths reported to an Australian state or territory coroner in which an electric mobility device, including e-bikes, e-scooters and electronic self-balancing devices, contributed to the death, according to the Monash University Accident Research Centre. A University of Melbourne study of media reports from January 2020 to April 2025 found the number of electric mobility device-related deaths across the country had more than doubled to 30 during that period. One of the most recent fatalities was in Perth on Saturday, when a teenage boy allegedly riding erratically on an electric dirt bike struck and killed a 59-year-old woman in a suburban park. The 17-year-old was charged with manslaughter, and a Western Australian parliamentary committee inquiry into electric rideable devices, which started this week, has been expanded to include e-bikes. An inquiry has also been launched in Queensland, and the NSW and Victorian governments wrote to the federal government earlier in July calling for a crackdown on the importation and sale of some e-bikes and e-scooters being illegally ridden on Australian roads. High-speed and dangerous mobility devices are being imported and sold and the states want them banned. In Australia, the maximum speed e-scooters can be ridden is from 20 to 25km/h, depending on the jurisdiction. E-bike motors must cut off when the bike reaches 25km/h. NSW and Victoria also called for tougher safety regulations and import laws for lithium batteries, citing the risk to public safety an "increasing" number of fires posed. The federal government has been contacted for comment.
SBS Australia
13 hours ago
- SBS Australia
Are you delaying the dentist because of cost? Your children shouldn't be.
Listen to Australian and world news, and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts . As an increasing number of Australian adults are delaying routine dental checkups due to costs, Australian dentists are urging parents not to make the same mistake with their kids. This Dental Health Week, the Australian Dental Association says that around 1.5 million Australian kids are missing out on free dental care every year. In a survey of 25,000 Australian adults, around 40 per cent say two is an appropriate age for a child's first dental visit. Dr Chris Sanzaro is the President of the Australian Dental Association. He says children should start seeing a dentist when their first tooth comes through. "And a few people think it should be older than that. 20 to 30 per cent of people think three to four years of age is appropriate, but the recommendation from the association is that children are taken to the dentist at age one or before age one, or when the first tooth comes through into the mouth." A routine checkup and clean can cost between $150 and $300 dollars for an adult, and research shows that around 2 million Australian adults are skipping or delaying dentist checkups. But, while dental for adults is not covered by Medicare, the government does offer eligible families up to $1,132 in dental care for children every two years. To be eligible for the Child Dental Benefit Schedule, children must be 17 or younger, eligible for Medicare, and have one parent or guardian receiving a government payment at least once that year. With only 38 per cent of those eligible actually claiming it, the Australian Dental Association says it's important that parents know if they're eligible and how to access it. Dr Sanzaro says delaying treatment for children reduces their options for treatment. "Children who attend the dentist early, we can find the holes in their teeth. If there's any decay developing, we can find that much earlier when it's smaller. When they're really small, that's a reversible condition. And when they're still quite small, that's something that's relatively easy to fix with fillings. Problem with waiting for children to get to the dentist when they're experiencing pain or discomfort is often those holes are so deep into the teeth. There's much less reduced options for treatment, including the need to potentially extract teeth. And that's not a fun experience for kids or for the dentist or parents. So it's much easier and better to get the kids in earlier when we can find these problems before they develop into something larger." Between 2018 and 2022, the data reveals that First Nations children were accessing the scheme at consistently lower rates than non-Indigenous children. And while a lack of awareness around the program is one key factor in its low uptake rate, it's not the only one. Abe Ropitini is the Executive Director of Population Health at VACCHO, or the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation. He has told SBS that there are two key issues that make the scheme inadequate for First Nations people. "One is that regardless of the fact that we have the scheme, there is an overall lack of choice that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families have in terms of getting access to culturally safe oral health and dental health services... So if you don't have a choice of provider that you and your family consider to be acceptable, then you won't have access to services and you won't ever utilise the scheme that's available to you." As well as the lack of culturally safe services, Mr Ropitini says it should not be on families to navigate complex funding programs in order to access primary healthcare. "It should really be simplified. It should be made more accessible in terms of understanding what your entitlements are, being able to have priority access to things without having to go into your records on how much you've been billed under that scheme in the past, whether your entitlements have renewed, whether or not you can still draw down from a particular budget or whether you're even eligible for it." Dr Madhan Balasubramanian is a Senior Lecturer in Health Care Management at Flinders University. In his research, he's studied why families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds experience widespread inequalities in dental care. He says there are a variety of reasons this demographic of people might not be going to the dentist. "So what we actually found out was in addition to cost is also confidence in quality care. So how confident are migrant groups in terms of availing dental care services over here, that is an issue. Even greater is a confusing healthcare system for them. But they have to navigate through the different loops of the healthcare system to understand how to actually avail care and considering dental care, a large proportion of it is offered in private services for them to really understand how to actually use different benefits schemes. And also costs is a barrier for them as well. Public system, they have a big waiting list for them to be eligible they would need to meet certain criteria." Having healthy teeth and gums impacts more than just what's in your mouth. Oral hygiene and dental health is essential to our wellbeing, both mental and physical. One key suggestion given by both Dr Balasubramanian and Mr Ropitini was to better integrate dental into the primary health system. "Primary healthcare is extremely vital in migrants, who often go to GPs, GP clinics, doctors as the primary point of of consultation. So that's been that gateway to the healthcare system in Australia. So dental providers need to collaborate more actively with GPs, they need to collaborate more actively with other primary healthcare providers." Things like missing or decayed teeth can impact a person's self-esteem and according to some studies, even lower their employment prospects in customer facing roles. Mr Ropitini says the importance of oral health can't be understated. "So it reflects whether you have access to nutrition, whether you have access to a balanced diet, whether you are therefore going to be healthy in other ways. So oral and dental health care is essential and fundamental to everything in your broader health and wellbeing. And it is madness that the system is separated, doesn't integrate, is culturally unsafe, and the funding landscape is over complicated for families impossible to navigate. I'm not surprised at all that we have seen, the outcomes that we are seeing at the moment. Something's got to be done."
