NEWS-JOURNAL (Daytona Beach, Florida) 31 July 07 Osteen woman bitten by water moccasin hospitalized (Anne Geggis)
Even a healthy fear of snakes -- and rustling the underbrush to scare them before beginning to weed -- didn't keep Kimberley Mooers from a biting experience of Florida's slithering wildlife.
The 37-year-old Osteen woman was attacking the weeds that had grown in her landscaping last week. But on the third reach between the croton and podocarpus shrubs Thursday, she felt a stabbing pain in her left pinky finger.
"I pulled my hand out," she said, explaining her surprise at finding a water moccasin attached to her gloved hand. "I had to fling my hand in the other direction to get him off."
Monday, Mooers was back from a three-day stay at Florida Hospital Fish Memorial in Orange City and considering whether to resume normal gardening activities -- or let her children play outside -- even after spending all of her adult life in this area.
"I've been around in the woods, and I've come across them in my mom's yard, but I've never been this up close and personal with one," she said. "I'm definitely more scared of snakes."
Fortunately for her, Florida's hospitals are more prepared to treat fang encounters than those in other parts of the country. Florida Hospital Fish Memorial, Florida Hospital Memorial System and Halifax Medical Center all keep enough antivenin on hand to begin treatment for the initial bite -- and the capacity to have more from a Lakeland wholesaler or the Miami Dade Venom Response Team within a few hours. Florida Hospital Memorial System also keeps black widow antivenin around too.
Treating a snake bite is costly, however, with the standard treatment of 11 vials costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Worse than sticker shock, though, the feeling of the bite put Mooers into a panic. She felt her hand going numb. She fell and had trouble finding her legs to get up. She ran to a worker who was helping with chores around the house.
"When I got to him, he couldn't understand a word I was saying," she said.
Her children, ages 7 and 9, were herded into the house. The handyman drove her to the fire station in Osteen with the kids in tow.
Local hospitals say that they deal with snake bites once every other year. Mooers found herself something of a curiosity in the Orange City hospital's emergency department -- especially since her husband brought the body of the biter -- a 3-foot, blackish snake with dark banding -- to the hospital.
"People were coming over to see," she said.
After being admitted to the hospital, Mooers was brought to the intensive care unit for close monitoring. Venom from pit vipers and diamondback rattlesnakes attack the red blood cells in the body. Drugs are administered as medical personnel observe whether the swelling continues or abates.
David Griffis, a soil scientist with the University of Florida Extension Service, said that on the rare occasions a bite does happen, gardening is what often brings man and reptile face to face. But development's push into unpopulated areas has been tougher on the reptiles, he said.
"We've decimated our snake population," Griffis said, explaining that an increase in the number of rodents is a result. "The best thing to do if you see a snake is leave it alone. It's going to be a lot more frightened of you than you are of it."
Mooers said she's always been aware that she shares her rural real estate with many different creatures.
"When you live out in the woods like this, I'm not dumb or naive enough to think that I don't expect them to be here," she said.
But she's not ready to agree to 7-year-old son Johnathan's latest request for a pet: a snake.
Osteen woman bitten by water moccasin hospitalized