ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS (Denver, Colorado) 13 June 06 Baby rattlesnake bites 11-year-old boy (David M. Barreda)
At 11, Tomas Rivard already has lived with a python, a tarantula, lizards, frogs, dogs and cats.
None had ever attacked him.
So when he saw a baby rattlesnake Saturday near an Aurora creek, Tomas thought he could handle the 18-inch reptile.
Besides, Tomas said, it wasn't rattling and its tongue wasn't flicking.
It looked dead, the youngster said.
He lifted the snake with a long stick, then squeezed its neck with his left hand and grabbed the rattle with his right.
He let his friend who was with him pet the snake.
But the rattler turned on him, applied its fangs over the base of the child's thumb for about a half-second and unleashed its venom.
"I was about to put it down, and it slipped, and it bit me," Tomas said Monday evening while recuperating in his hospital bed at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center, his left hand heavily bandaged.
His condition on Monday was fair, said his doctor, Martin Alswang. Tomas' hand and fingers had swollen so much that blisters formed.
On Monday a surgeon removed the blisters in the hospital's wound care unit.
The youngster is expected to stay at the hospital for at least another day so that physicians can monitor him and ensure that the wound does not become infected.
"It was nasty," Tomas said of the bite. "It hurts."
Although snakebites are rarely fatal because of today's antivenin medication and quick response by physicians, the poison can cause an allergic reaction.
Tomas said he asked a paramedic how long it would take for the rattler's venom to kill someone.
He was told about two hours.
"And I was happy about that," Tomas said.
When Tomas was first brought to the hospital he began vomiting and he felt the left side of his body going limp.
The youngster who recently finished sixth grade at Murphy Creek Middle School said has no animosity toward the baby rattler.
He said he hopes developers never build near Tollgate Creek so that wildlife like the snake that bit him will be left alone.
"I'm still not afraid of snakes or nothing," he said. "But I am afraid of black mambas and king cobras."
His father, Tom, stood alongside his son's hospital bed and questioned his wisdom for approaching the snake in the first place, despite his experience with reptiles and other creatures.
Rivard said Aurora officials should consider erecting signs along the creek warning visitors that snakes are in the area.
"You're a nut, dude," his father told Tomas.
But Tomas may have to be a little crazy to pursue a possible career as an archaeologist.
"I love dinosaurs," he said.
If not an archaeologist, a zookeeper or zoologist - preferably at a safe distance.
"I would be like Steve Irwin (televisions "Crocodile Hunter"," Tomas said, "if the animals are locked up."
Baby rattlesnake bites 11-year-old boy

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