CLAYTON PIONEER (California) 21 July 08 Rattlesnake bite puts Dana Ridge 9-year-old in hospital (Tamara Steiner)
On the evening of June 17, 9-year-old Talia Bullock was doing what hundreds of Clayton kids do on hot summer evenings -- playing outside her Mt. Dell Drive home with a friend. But unlike the hundreds of kids who went home to bed that night, Talia spent the night in the hospital. Barefoot, the little girl had taken a rattlesnake bite in her big toe.
"We were playing in the grass and I saw something," recalls the quiet child. "I thought it was a leaf." But a leaf doesn’t bite. A rattlesnake does.
"We had talked about snakes, and our neighbor showed her a dead one," said her mother, Nancy Bullock. "She just didn’t see this one in the dark."
Bullock is a nurse at John Muir Hospital and had just taken care of a rattlesnake bite victim in ICU two weeks before. She knew that getting to the hospital quickly was critical. "We just jumped in the car and drove," she said. "By the time we got to the hospital, she had numbness and tingling in her mouth. Her toe had turned black, and her foot was swelling."
While seldom fatal to humans, bites are extremely painful and can lead to severe medical trauma if not treated in a timely manner, often resulting in massive swelling of the bitten areas. Talia spent the next four days at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek. It took seven vials of the anti-venom to clear the toxins from her body.
Rattlesnakes are a common threat in the Clayton area. Scores of snakes are seen each year, and the Dana Hills/Dana Ridge development seems to be a particularly favorite hangout of the vipers. Much of that area backs up to the Mt. Diablo open space.
The garden hoses and swimming pools of the suburban development provide welcome water and shade. They feed on small rodents, which are plentiful in suburban habitats. Rattlesnakes often move into a yard after the sun goes down and the temperatures drop, making them hard to see. They will frequently hide under trashcans, porches and lawn furniture. Discourage their visits by clearing brush and debris from your property and removing any potential hiding places.
Talia is fully recovered, but her mother says she still has a bit of numbness in her toe. She isn’t sure if this will be permanent. Talia is vacationing with relatives in the South Bay, but we spoke to her by phone. Asked what she would tell her friends about rattlesnakes, she had this to say: "Stay away from them." Oh yeah, "and wear shoes." For more on rattlesnakes, see the May 9 issue of the Pioneer, or visit The Department of Fish and Game at www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/snake.html.
Rattlesnake bite puts Dana Ridge 9-year-old in hospital