SUN-SENTINEL (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) 10 October 06 Cobra bites Palm Beach County snake keeper during feeding (Nancy L. Othón )

Just as he presumably had done hundreds of times before, a Palm Beach County man fed his red spitting cobra snake Sunday night, but this time he was bitten in the hand, authorities said.

In about an hour, Lt. Charles Seifert of Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue's antivenin unit had hopped onto a Trauma Hawk helicopter and taken the antivenin to JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, where the man was treated and expected to fully recover.

Seifert said the man, whose name he could not release, is licensed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to own the snake. The man, 39, has worked with snakes for 10 years without an incident, Seifert said.

It's uncommon for a snake keeper to be bitten, he said, though a Plantation man was bitten by his pet black Pakistani cobra Oct. 2.

"Unfortunately it's the keepers who get the most attention because they're the guys who have the cobras, but they are not the biggest problem," Seifert said.

Most victims of bites are 20- to 40-year-old men who see a snake outside and have no fear of it, so they try to kill it, Seifert said.

"The biggest message that we could get out is if you see a snake, leave it alone," he said. "You put yourself in more harm by trying to kill it or catch it."

The antivenin unit responded to 250 bite calls last year and in just five of those calls, the victims were licensed to own snakes, Seifert said. Those incidents include any type of bite in which the unit was called. Antivenin was given in 96 of those calls, Seifert said.

Most commonly, the Miami-Dade unit uses antivenin for water moccasin and pygmy rattler bites, Seifert said. The unit, which is the only fire department in the country that keeps a supply of antivenin, has 38 types on hand, including antivenin for scorpions and poisonous spiders.

Sunday was busy for the antivenin unit, which also responded to a call in the Miramar area when a woman was bitten by a water moccasin as she was gardening, Seifert said. She did not require antivenin because she had been wearing gloves and it was a "dry bite," he said.

An untreated cobra bite can be deadly. Reaction to a bite can include paralysis, nausea and difficulty in breathing. Cobras are native to Africa and Asia.



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-pcobra10oct10,0,5908920.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

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