Reptile & Amphibian Forums

LANCASTER SUNDAY NEWS (Pennsylvania) 27 March 04 Snakebit (Maria Coole Mcoole)
Bitten by his West African bush viper, a Pequea boy’s life is saved by doctors and zookeepers. He may lose a finger.
One of Vinny Drago’s dreams is to meet Steve Irwin of TV’s “The Crocodile Hunter.’’ Irwin has spent his whole life living amongst and working with reptiles and other native Australian wildlife at the Australia Zoo, which was founded by his parents.
Vinny’s experience with reptiles pales in comparison, but the 17-year-old Pequea boy has had one experience that Irwin hasn’t. He has been bitten by a venomous snake.
And he didn’t choose a good one.
Yes, it was beautiful: bright green with yellow spots and turquoise eyes.
But the most important thing to consider if you are going to keep a venomous snake is “Can you get antivenin?” (Antivenin is also known informally as antivenom).
And for the West African bush viper, the first venomous snake Vinny owned, the answer is no.
Vinny could have died, and might lose a finger, because he didn’t know that.
Vinny Drago owned his first pet snake at age 4. Reptiles and amphibians have been his passion. He grew up in Florida and caught many in their natural habitat. When he was in kindergarten, he even carried a coral snake off a playground because the teacher and students were frightened.
He has had many nonvenomous pet snakes, including pythons and boa constrictors and has done much research on snakes. But the West African bush viper (Atheris chlorechis) and its venom have not been studied much, and there have been conflicting reports about how dangerous a bite could be.
Vinny said the man he bought the snake from told him it wouldn’t hurt him. “The guy had told me, if I had gotten bitten, nothing would happen. I would not even get sick. I would just have a little bit of pain, like a bee sting,’’ Vinny said.
Vinny’s mother Lisa called the man the next day. “He said ... it would not hurt my son,’’ she said.
The Dragos did not want the name of the person who sold the snake to Vinny published.
“You know that gut feeling you get when you are a parent. I just had that gut feeling. … I was too naïve,” said Lisa.
“If I’d known there was no antivenom, I would never allowed Vinnie to have it.”
There are not many people who are competent to work with West African bush vipers, said Brint Spencer, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Philadelphia Zoo.
“In general, venomous snakes should never be considered a pet. They are ... something to observe,’’ he said.
And anyone keeping a venomous snake should keep antivenom, he said.
Spencer said he is unaware of any fatalities from a bush viper bite in the United States. “Typically, it’s very painful, usually not fatal,’’ he said.
After living with Vinny for seven months, the West African bush viper, about 19 inches long and 3 to 4 years old, has been a vagabond.
It spent a few weeks with Chet Sourbeer of Millersville after he heard through a friend that Lisa wanted it out of her house. But after Sourbeer took the snake to Millersville, word filtered to the police department, which informed Sourbeer of the borough zoning ordinance that prohibits keeping venomous snakes.
The snake then spent a day at the Millersville Borough police station until police Chief John Rochat contacted the Philadelphia Zoo, and Spencer came to pick it up.
The snake will soon move from the Philadelphia Zoo to a venom lab in Kentucky, where it will stay until it finds a permanent home at a zoo in Ohio.
Sourbeer, who has kept many reptiles and amphibians, said the man who sold the snake to Vinny “had no business selling the snake to a kid that young.”
There is no Pennsylvania law forbidding the sale of exotic venomous snakes, said Gary Davis, president and founder of the Northeast Pennsylvania Herpetological Society.
The only laws concern native species, he said. The state leaves it up to each municipality, he said.
Chad Peeling, operations manager for Reptiland on U.S. Route 15 in Allenwood, said a lot of towns have laws against keeping venomous snakes.
“The real problem is when people do foolish things. It’s hard to legislate against that,” he said. “In terms of legalities, there are no broad statewide or nationwide laws preventing people from keeping venomous snakes,” he said.
The West African bush viper is not a threat to community, he said, but “it can put you in hospital and make your life pretty unpleasant for a while.”
Vinny’s life became “pretty unpleasant” on Feb. 9. Before he went to bed in the early morning, he checked the bush viper’s cage. The snake looked like it might be dead. He reached in and moved a log in the cage.
The snake struck, sinking its two fangs into his left index finger.
The pain began immediately. Within minutes his hand and arm were swollen, and his finger, where the snake struck, was turning black and blue. By the time the ambulance arrived, the tissue in his finger and hand was already dying.
Vinny ran into his mother’s room, waking her up, yelling in pain.
“I thought for sure I was going to lose him,” said Lisa.
Rescue personnel quickly contacted Harrisburg Hospital, which told them to have the nearest medical helicopter airlift Vinny to Harrisburg. Then Harrisburg began researching what to do about the bite.
Dr. Kevin Washington got on the phone with Lisa, and she gave him all the information she could.
While the Conestoga Ambulance crew was putting a tourniquet on Vinny’s arm to prevent the progression of the venom, the helicopter was landing across from their home deep in the country.
Washington was spending just a month at Harrisburg Hospital as part of his residency training. This was his first snake bite. Dr. Ward Donovan, head of the toxicology department, has dealt with snake bites but never one with no available antivenom, Washington said.
The next step was checking with poison centers throughout the country to find the best antivenom, Washington said.
He also searched the Internet for information. He and Donovan settled on a polyvalent (a mix of antivenoms that included antigens that work on snakes similar to the West African bush viper) from South Africa. But the choice was a gamble.
After finding out through a poison control center in Tuscon, Ariz., which zoos in the country might have the South African antivenom, Washington called the Philadelphia Zoo and the Baltimore Zoo. Both zoos, which Washington praised for their help, provided antivenom.
Vinny arrived at Harrisburg Hospital at between 1:30 and 2 a.m., Washington said. Spencer of the Philadelphia Zoo got a phone call at home at around 2:30 a.m. He drove to the zoo to pick up five vials of antivenom and then drove to the Philadelphia airport. A helicopter from Harrisburg was at the airport to fly the antivenom back to the hospital. At the same time, employees from the Baltimore Zoo were driving 10 vials of antivenom to Harrisburg.
Meanwhile, the hospital staff was giving Vinny rattlesnake antivenom at around 3 a.m., hoping it might help while they waited for the antivenom from Philadelphia.
It didn’t help. The swelling continued, and Vinny’s entire arm was so painful that even grazing it lightly was excruciating, Washington said.
At around 4:30 a.m., Vinny got the first South African polyvalent antivenom when the Philadelphia Zoo vials arrived. The antivenom from the Baltimore Zoo came later. Vinny was given more antivenom at around 10 or 11 a.m., Washington said.
The progression of the damage from the venom stopped after the hospital administered the South African antivenom, Washington said, although his body might have been starting to recover on its own at the same time he received the South African antivenom.
Washington said he doesn’t really know if Vinny came close to dying from the snake bite, although the teen showed signs that the venom had gotten into his central circulation system and he had blood abnormalities.
Without the antivenom, “potentially [Vinny] could have lost his arm or could have died. There is no way to know for sure.”
If there could be any luck involved in a snake bite, Vinny was in one of the best places he could have been. Harrisburg Hospital is the only hospital in the country that has a toxicology unit with hospital beds dedicated just for poison patients.
Vinny spent nine days in the hospital. He is home now, but cannot go to school. A Penn Manor High School student, he is being schooled at home two days a week.
His prognosis is very good, Washington said, but he still might lose his left index finger because there was a lot of tissue damage, and he could need skin grafts. When antivenom is administered it does not stop the local tissue damage; it just stops the progression of the venom through the body, he said. He estimated it would take several months for Vinny’s finger to heal.
Washington has written an article on Vinny’s case for a medical journal, but it isn’t published yet.
Because there is not a great demand for an antivenom for the West African bush viper, no one has invested the time and money to produce it. In its native habitat in northwest and middle Africa the snake has rare contact with humans.
The antivenom the Philadelphia Zoo stores is imported from South Africa. To import the antivenom, Spencer needs a special combined permit that is issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Health & Human Services Department.
Some zoos, including the Philadelphia Zoo, won’t keep bush vipers on display because there is no antivenom, said Spencer.
Chad Peeling of Reptiland said Harrisburg Hospital also called them looking for antivenom, but they didn’t have what was needed.
“It is dangerous,” Peeling said of the West African bush viper. “It is not high on the list of the most dangerous snakes,” he said.
“They are relatively small snakes. That is a factor. The quantity of the venom is smaller with smaller snakes.”
The venom is poorly studied and so few bites occur, he said, there is not much experience in treating them.
The American Association of Poison control Centers has no data on West African bush viper bites, and the bites are not required to be reported anywhere, a spokeswoman for the group said.
A snake can control the amount of venom it releases, said Spencer of the Philadelphia Zoo. How a bite affects a person depends on sensitivity, where the bite is and how much venom was injected, said Spencer.
If the snake hits a vein or artery, the venom will travel more quickly through the blood. If the snake thinks it is being threatened, it will inject a smaller amount of venom than if it is striking to kill its food, Spencer said.
“In a feeding response, the snake wants to kill whatever it is as quickly as possible, so it doesn’t have to track it.”
“In a captive situation,” he said, “when a snake strikes, it is usually a feeding response because it is used to the door opening and food coming in.”
Spencer said the real cost of keeping snakes isn’t the purchase price; it’s the cost of the antivenom.
But that cost has to include importation paperwork and brokerage fees. The cost of the antivenom from the Philadelphia Zoo, not including Spencer’s time and the helicopter, probably was around $500.
In researching his upcoming book, Michael Jacobi, the author of The World of Atheris Web site (www.worldofatheris.net) found only a handful of bite accounts, he told the Sunday News in an e-mail.
He writes on his Web site that African bush viper venom is “poorly studied and generally misunderstood. ... [There is] an erroneous belief that these snakes are ‘mildly venomous’ or not life threatening. This is simply not true.”
Grateful mom
Lisa, who is unemployed, is worried about the bills. Insurance will not pay for the helicopter trips, the ambulance, Vinny’s medicine and the antivenom. And when Vinny turns 18 in April, he will no longer be covered by insurance.
She is grateful, though, for all the help they have gotten and how much people have cared.
She praised the hospital and staff, also.
“The toxicology team was great. … I can’t thank them enough.”
But Washington garnered most of her praise.
“I just owe him everything. … He’s just a really wonderful doctor,” Lisa said.
Snakebit

That Echis A/V works for Atheris. Lets keep listining to all these so called experts on venoms, and we'll all be dead, then we won't have to worry about it.

To the "knowitalls",
Chad

ok one guy died aledgedly, so The fact remains that atheris
is not a fatal bite like a sawsacale no comparison.
so using echis av would be well a shot in the dark to say the least .
it might help but why your not gonna die any way
list all the dead from bushviper bites go ahead list them.
what one from a spalls and branch book?
I thought so near none!
-----
Bud

We, and other groups, have done lab work on Atheris venoms and demonstrated that they (as well as Proatheris) have absolutely devastating effects upon the blood chemistry. I essentially consider them to be essentially arboreal Echis. Perhaps not quite as toxic but still very very potent and with a similar action upon the blood. As for antivenom neutralisation, we haven't worked out the best match but I would be suprised if Echis really had that much of an effect since Echis antivenoms don't even work against regional variants or other species of Echis. Therefore, the cross-reactivity to an entire other genus is to be expected to be poor. This of course complicates the situation tremendously and makes an Atheris bite even more dangerous at the end of the day due to lack of effective treatment. Bites in the wild by this genus are fairly infrequent and envenomations in captiivity are also few and far between due to the typically mellow temperment of the snakes.

Cheers
Bryan
-----
Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
Deputy Director
Australian Venom Research Unit
University of Melbourne

www.venomdoc.com

I never heard of any deaths, and never said "they" would kill you, but the threat is always there.

Chad

But it seemed to me any way you typed 'we will all be dead'
I figured you meant from a bushy.

Heck the venom researchers have helped in a multitude of ways.
Testing out things like ,LD50s,shock treatment for bites,THE Extractor,Ace bandage tested on hog test victims,and they
found several antivenoms that worked on different species.
Bryans work on coulubrid venoms was phenomenal to say the least.
Their work continues and will not end any time soon.
Many experts that do nothing but help mankind.
Email one some time they will help you even with their busy schedules.
To say they attribute to deaths is almost ubsurd.
later
-----
Bud

I don't wanna be negitive here , but why would you own a snake even if it's not dangerous , without looking up any information on it ? Plus at the age of 17 and having owned snakes most of his life you think the boy would have a couple of cells out in his head working . It's just another slap towards our states venomous laws . Not to mention a black mark for everyone who owns a snake , not just venomous in our state .

First sue the guy that sold the snake to a minor and told him it was near harmless.

also echis av might help but it is not a documented treatment.
for a snake that has not killed basicly ANYONE ever!.
So if your not gonna die why inject av that might or might not work.
my 2 cents
-----
Bud

Just my .02.I was a the Hamburg Pa show speaking to a single mom who purchased a juvie atrox for her 12 year old son! "He's mature". The vendor knew about this and was willing to sell anyway! He just wanted that 25.00 sale.