A Sunshine Coast teenager accidentally struck on the head with a golf club while cane toad hunting with friends has died in hospital.

He was flown to the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane in a critical condition early on Sunday morning and died on Tuesday.

Queensland police said the accident occurred on Saturday night while 13-year-old Zeke Douglas was out with friends in Maroochydore hunting cane toads.

Zeke and his friends had been hitting the toads with a golf club.

“He was too close to his mate who swung the golf club that collected him in the head, and he went straight down and went into cardiac arrest,” Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman Toni Careless said.

“We had three paramedic crews on scene treating this child to get his heart started, which they did, but he never regained breathing on his own.”

Ms Careless said the scene was “traumatic and upsetting” as paramedics worked under light from torches and mobile phones.

“You still had the other children who were there and another child had arrived to comfort them and you had the mother,” she said.

Police said they believed it was a terrible accident that was not being treated as suspicious.

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.

It says cane toads should be killed humanely by putting them to sleep in the fridge, before freezing them.