MIAMI HERALD (Florida) 03 April 08 Venom response team ready to help with snake bites, education (Kyle Bailey)
You're outside doing yard work, and suddenly what looked like a tree branch turns out to be a poisonous snake. Then curiosity -- or one too many reruns of Crocodile Hunter -- get the best of you and suddenly you've been bitten.
Fortunately for South Floridians, help might be just around the corner: The nation's only storage of most varieties of life-saving antivenin, or anti-venom, happens to be right here courtesy of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Venom Response Bureau.
Now through Sunday, the Venom Response Bureau will bring in a king cobra, a black mamba, rattlesnakes and other large and deadly species to Miami Metrozoo, 12400 SW 152nd St., for its annual Venom Week.
Many already know firsthand about the bureau: Workers in Homestead who stumble upon poisonous snakes on construction sites; a 73-year-old man bitten in the foot last November by a pygmy rattlesnake in the Everglades, a worker attacked by a two-foot western diamondback rattlesnake as he was moving it from one cage to another at a Davie wholesale business.
The bureau also captures exotic snakes such as an anaconda recently found near Miami International Airport.
But Lt. Al Cruz, who heads the venom unit, said dwindling supplies of the antivenin are making things increasingly difficult.
''We may be approaching the toughest time in our history,'' said Cruz, speaking from the unit's headquarters at AD Barnes Park.
Standing in a dimly lit room filled with numerous exotic reptiles captured by the team, Cruz said that after September his unit will be the sole supplier of coral snake antivenin in the nation.
Why?
Because one of two types of antivenin are no longer being manufactured and what is available on hospital shelves now soon will expire, specifically those that deal with the coral snake, a relative of the cobra, the most toxic snake in the country.
Cruz said Floridians report about 80 percent of coral snake bites in the United States. Ten other states in the Southeast make up the other 20 percent -- and that's the challenge for Cruz and his staff to see that those out-of-state victims get rushed doses of antivenin.
''It's going to be quite a task for us, working with commercial airlines and also with the military,'' he said. ``We're aggressively talking to congressmen and senators to help us with grants or any type of appropriations.''
The state's health department awarded a $100,000 grant to the bureau last year.
The unit was also recently recognized by the Miami-Dade County Commission for saving the life of the elderly man bitten by the rattlesnake in the Everglades.
Of the hundreds of calls the unit receives annually, few are life-threatening, but Cruz notes that the absence of an expert can mean the difference between life and death in a venom-related emergency.
Cruz points to the 12 years following the departure of Bill Haast, who researched and developed antivenin at the Serpentarium in Pinecrest until Haast closed its doors in 1984.
''Between 1986 and '98 there was a lapse where there was no one to take care of those needs, so during that period about half a dozen people died from snake bites,'' Cruz said.
That period ended in March 1998 when the bureau was formed.
Since then, the unit has responded to emergencies in 17 states and throughout Central and South America.
''We've even gone to other continents, like Africa, Asia and even assisted up in Canada,'' Cruz said.
But the unit doesn't spend all its time dealing with bite victims.
Education is also key, with staff visiting elementary, middle and high schools as well as teaching doctors or nurses what they might encounter in the emergency room or their own backyard.
And for many living in South Miami-Dade, that backyard extends out to the Everglades.
That's another concern for the unit: the invasion of the Burmese python and other nonindigenous animals dumped into the Everglades by owners who no longer want the animal.
Cruz said the unit is also looking at playing an increased role if there's a natural disaster such as a hurricane.
The bureau will be able to help in capturing wildlife that might escape from captivity.
But no rescue unit can be at all places at all times, so it's up to the public to understand fact from fiction when dealing with poisonous snakes.
So while biting a bullet and taking a shot of whiskey might work in a John Wayne movie, Hollywood cures couldn't be further from reality.
Cruz offers a much better solution: Just remain calm and call 911, he said.
Venom response team ready to help with snake bites, education