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FL Press: 'Cobraman' Recovering

Nov 13, 2007 06:22 AM

{Paperboy Comment: There's really nothing new in the offered 'update' following, however, it does demonstrate that this particular event is still being followed by local press. This is unusual in my modest experience of collecting herp press - usually there is no follow-up on any sort of bite event. I have no idea if this is a good or a bad sort of thing. respects, Wes}

WPBF (Palm Beach Gardens, Florida) 12 November 07 'Cobraman' Recovering From 44th Venomous Snake Bite
Video link at URL below
Port St. Lucie, Fla.: Maybe "Cobraman" should consider a new line of work.
Ray Hunter, of Port St. Lucie, is still hospitalized nearly two weeks after being bitten by an eastern diamondback rattlesnake. He said it is his 44th venomous snake bite, and he said it is "definitely the worst."
The 44-year-old man known as "Cobraman" is licensed to possess venomous snakes. He got the five-and-a-half-foot rattlesnake from Port St. Lucie animal control officers.
He was bitten on the right hand while cleaning his snake cages around 12:30 a.m. on Oct. 30. Hunter managed to drive himself to St. Lucie Medical Center, where medical staff found him passed out behind the wheel of his car in the hospital's parking lot. Hospital staff told WPBF News 25 that Hunter is suffering from kidney failure and his right arm remains largely swollen. It is not clear when he can return home, WPBF reported.
Animal control and hospital staff often call Hunter when they need advice on how to treat a snakebite, WPBF reported. While medical workers were taking him into the emergency room, a nurse called his cell phone to get advice, only to realize that he was the patient when the phone in his pocket began ringing, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Hunter's Web site, cobraman.net, details his past bites, including displaying photos of him in the hospital with close-ups of his swollen and discolored fingers that were bloodied from the bites of cobras, vipers and rattlesnakes.
The snake that most recently put Hunter into the hospital is now at a zoo in another state.
'Cobraman' Recovering From 44th Venomous Snake Bite

Replies (3)

Nov 13, 2007 06:46 AM

TC PALM (Stuart, Florida) 10 November 07 After near-fatal bite in PSL, 'Cobraman' says he plans to slow down (Will Greenlee)
Port St. Lucie: Ray Hunter knew this bite was going to be bad.
At 5 1/2 feet long, the eastern diamondback rattlesnake that chomped his right hand was a monster.
"I could feel that this thing put a lot of venom in me," Hunter said Friday in his room at St. Lucie Medical Center, nearly two weeks after the bite.
The 44-year-old Miami native has had a lifelong passion for snakes. The recent bite is his 44th "significant venomous" one and "definitely the worst."
Hunter, whose nickname is "Cobraman," is in renal failure, his right arm remains swollen significantly and he doesn't know when he can return to his Port St. Lucie home.
"I thank God, that God's given me another chance to go on living," Hunter said. "I know he's got some plan for me out there, I just don't know what it is."
Hunter, who's licensed to possess venomous snakes, got the male rattler, along with another eastern diamondback, from city animal control officials a few days before the bite.
"Instead of relocating it or killing it or whatever their options might be, if it's a venomous snake, they give it to me," he explained.
Hunter was cleaning cages early Oct. 27 and made a mistake judging distance.
Then it happened.
He quickly changed his shirt, shut down his computers and checked his watch — it was 12:36 a.m. — before driving to the hospital.
"The venom started taking effect very quickly," he said. "If you'd have told me before this happened that this ... could happen this quickly I would tell you you're crazy, that it can't, that you've safely got an hour."
He felt drunk and couldn't stay on the road. Knowing he couldn't park in the emergency room lot and walk in, Hunter figured he'd get as close as he could and then honk the horn.
"I felt like I was going to pass out, and, in fact, I did," he said.
A passerby told a police officer a man appeared to be unconscious behind the wheel of his parked vehicle, and he was taken inside.
Hunter said the bite has made him "more aware of a lot of things."
"I just basically have to just slow down, be a little more careful," he said. "The problem with working with a lot of snakes is you get complacent."
A practice of self immunization, or injecting diluted amounts venom, also lends to complacency.
"It's an added little insurance policy, but you're not God," he said. "When it's time to go, it's time to go."
Hunter, who buys and sells vacant lots for a living, said he usually doesn't keep his snakes at his home. The snake that bit him was there because he'd just gotten it a few days prior.
It's now at a zoo in another state, he said, along with some king cobras and "some other stuff that they'd bought."

{Danke to the Field Herp Forum for the lead on this one}
'Cobraman' says he plans to slow down

SCherper09 Nov 14, 2007 08:41 AM

It's great to see he'll be alright =)

Senior Nov 14, 2007 12:54 PM

I certainly hope so, but will he really?

I'd read in one account about "renal failure"....I wonder if this did any permanent damage to his kidneys, liver etc?

I'm unfamiliar with some of the long term consequences of a bad EDB bite so I'm merely speculating based upon what I'd read.

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