COURIER-TRIBUNE (Asheboro, N Carolina) 08 July 06 Snake bites part of summer (Annette Dunlap)
Asheboro: Summer has its pleasures, but it also has its dangers — as some local folks found out the hard way.
Nancy Pendleton, a Realtor with RE/MAX Central Realty in Asheboro, was the unfortunate victim of a copperhead bite in May 2004.
“It was on a Saturday afternoon and I went barreling outdoors without looking,” said Pendleton, who lives in the Briarcliff subdivision.
“As I was going down the steps, I found something under my feet and I thought it was one of my cats. Then, I realized that it wasn’t.”
A copperhead, lying in the open, had bitten Pendleton. She described the pain as “someone slamming a rosebush up inside my leg above my ankle. It was real sharp.”
Pendleton was bitten twice. The snake released the venom on the second bite.
“Snakes will typically give a warning bite or a warning strike before they bite,” explained Paul Decker, a zookeeper in the Cypress Swamp at the N.C. Zoo. “They actually try to avoid encounters with people.”
Pendleton said that her husband prayed for her and then called ahead to Randolph Hospital. The medical staff there ran blood tests to determine whether or not she would need the anti-venom treatments.
Decker, whose expertise includes reptiles, encourages people to seek medical attention immediately, but cautions them on demanding the anti-venom serum.
“Some people are more allergic to the anti-venom than they are to the venom,” he said.
Although Pendleton did not require anti-venom, she remained in serious pain and had tremendous swelling in her leg.
“I have a high tolerance for pain,” she said, “but they had to give me morphine to help me cope with it. I was on crutches for a week.”
Pendleton believes that her husband’s prayers and the quick treatment of Randolph Hospital’s staff kept the snake venom from traveling beyond her lower leg.
“The toxin never went above my knee. I looked like a cartoon character with that swelling.”
People are not the only ones who should use caution when outside.
Claudia Ainsworth had had her newly-adopted West Highland terrier, Bramble, only four days when it encountered a copperhead. Ainsworth, who is the buyer and manager of the gift shop for the Randolph Arts Guild in Asheboro, said the encounter took place near a woodpile at the end of her yard on June 17.
“We had just finished bathing her (Bramble) and giving her Frontline, and I took her on a leash to walk her on the property. She stuck her nose into some leaves, and she screamed and jumped. I brought her into the house — she was whimpering and had her head and tail down. I looked closely and her nose had begun to swell instantly.”
Ainsworth and her husband located the copperhead, which had a small loop of its patterned body protruding from the leaves.
“He hit it with the snake whacker. It was easily a yard long.”
Ainsworth took her dog to an emergency veterinary service in Greensboro that was open on the weekend.
“The copperhead toxin is a hematoxin, not a neurotoxin,” explained Ainsworth, who learned the difference as a result of her recent experience. “They put her on an IV with platelets packed with fluids and gave her massive doses of antibiotics.”
As Ainsworth discovered, the bacteria in a snake’s mouth can be just as dangerous as the venom from the bite.
According to the website, , there are several steps you should take to keep your pets safe from snakes. They include:
- Don’t let your pet examine “road kill” snakes. Dead pit vipers can have some muscle contractions after death and thus have been known to “bite” even after they’re dead. Those bites can still release venom. Don’t handle a dead or injured snake — not even a decapitated head.
- If your pet is bitten by a snake that you think might be venomous, get medical attention immediately. It’s better to go in and be checked out rather than wait and be sorry.
Snakes prefer to avoid encounters, said the N.C. Zoo’s Decker, but sometimes pets and humans can be unwitting victims of snakes.
“Pets tend to suffer the worst,” he said, adding, “Curiosity kills more than cats.”
Snake bites part of summer