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BBC (London, UK) 09 August 03 Toddler bitten by deadly snake
A toddler bitten by a poisonous snake while playing on a beach is being treated in a hospital's high dependency unit.
Two-year-old Isobella Evans was attacked by an adder as she played in the baking weather near her grandparents' beach hut at Rotherslade Bay on the Gower peninsula.
The snake sank its fangs into her foot and she collapsed to the sand, screaming in agony.
Her parents carried her to their car and rushed her to hospital where doctors found two puncture marks on her heel which had turned black.
The toddler was given an antidote and put on a heart and lung monitor at Swansea's Singleton Hospital.
On Friday night she was said to be improving even though her leg was still swollen from the snake venom.
It is thought she wandered into a clump of grass where the snake bit her as she stood on it.
Holidaymakers sunning themselves on the beach ran to her aid. Her parents then drove her five miles to the hospital.
An urgent warning has been issued to holidaymakers to be wary of adders.
Isobella's father, Ian Evans said: "We didn't really notice it at the time but then she started writhing with agony.
"I had actually seen a small snake earlier on, so I put two and two together. She wasn't well at all and she has been put on a heart and respiratory monitor for two nights.
"Snake bites can be fatal and there can be heart complications. I was quite worried to see her linked up to the machines."
Mr Evans, originally from Derwen Fawr, Swansea, but who now living near High Wycombe, Bucks, was keeping a round-the-clock vigil at the hospital with wife Sian.
Both sets of grandparents, David and Sheila Rees, from Mumbles and Clive and Carol Evans from Derwen Fawr, are also staying at the little girl's bedside.
Mr Evans added: "Isobella is quite grizzly and her leg is very swollen but she is getting better.
"The consultant was quite concerned to start with as he doesn't often see snake bites but they have now said she could be out of hospital in a couple of days."
The common adder is the UK's only venomous snake, but it is less aggressive than most snakes and its bite is rarely fatal to humans. It is also a protected species.
"It is very rare for people to suffer so badly. I don't think there have been more than a handful of deaths in the last century," said Swansea University retired biologist Paul Llewellyn who worked with snakes for 30 years.
"The snakes would do a runner if you went towards them but if you stand on them their first line of defence is to move you by biting you."
Toddler bitten by deadly snake

Amazing how the headline was " bitten by deadly snake " to bites are seldon fatal and the snakes are not aggressive. To late to sue for false advertizing-----------depicting a real item as something it's not. Ohh wait the media world wide does that as matter of course with apparent impunity. I you did that to them would be a liable suit comming at you so fast your head would spin.
Barry

I guess everything is relative. For a very small child, that bite could well prove fatal without treatment. That, I suppose, would make it a "deadly snake" in that particular instance.

is that the reporter refers to the bite as an "attack"...but further on mentions that the child was standing on the snake.
Classic defensive bite.

~~Greg~~

Yeah, I noticed that, too...just a tad ironic, huh?

Nobody ever said reporters are smart.

I would venture to say nearly all venomous snake bites (with the exception of mistaking hand as food in captives) are defensive...i refuse to believe in a "snake attack"...a venomous snake simply has no use for attacking a human, they would only defend themselves when they felt threatened.

I would venture to say nearly all venomous snake bites (with the exception of mistaking hand as food in captives) are defensive...i refuse to believe in a "snake attack"...a venomous snake simply has no use for attacking a human, they would only defend themselves when they felt threatened.

I would venture to say nearly all venomous snake bites (with the exception of mistaking hand as food in captives) are defensive...i refuse to believe in a "snake attack"...a venomous snake simply has no use for attacking a human, they would only defend themselves when they felt threatened.