Posted by:
oldherper
at Fri Aug 8 15:23:25 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by oldherper ]
No, from what I understand, he did not have his own supply of antivenin. Even if he only had a couple of vials on hand that may have made the difference...it may have bought enough time to get more from area zoos.
My understanding of the incident is that when he arrived at the hospital, the call went out to 3 or 4 area zoos, who responded by sending antivenin, and there was some more sent enroute from Miami. Unfortunately, the antivenin simply could not be gotten to the hospital in time. By the time it arrived it was just too late for antivenin to be effective...too much irreversable organ tissue damage had been done by the venom.
Antivenin is very expensive, sometimes around $1,000.00 or more per vial (Crofab has a wholesale price of about $860.00 per vial). Private keepers seldom have it on hand for that reason. If you keep several different genera of venomous animals, and try to stock a minimum of 2 ampoules of each type you need, it can quickly run into many thousands of dollars. Plus, it has a limited shelf life and needs to be periodically replaced (there is the legal expiration date on the label and the "real" one for when it actually gets too old to be effective).
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RE: MAN DEAD FROM SNAKE BITE - oldherper, Fri Aug 8 15:23:25 2003