SEATTLE TIMES (Washington) 25 May 05 Snake season puts bite on ER (Susannah Rosenblatt)
Loma Linda, California: After accidentally squishing a Mojave rattlesnake under the tires of his dirt bike, contractor Kevin Figueroa whacked off its head for a souvenir.
The decapitated serpent was not amused.
When Figueroa reached down to pick up the head — with 3 inches of body attached — it wheeled around and bit his left index finger.
As the poison crawled slowly up his arm with a cold, tingling sensation, Figueroa, 21, wound up at Loma Linda University Medical Center's "Venom ER" under the care of Dr. Sean Bush, one of the nation's most experienced snakebite specialists.
For Bush, springtime in Southern California means snake season. As the six species of rattlesnake indigenous to the region slither into the sun, dozens of curious kids, unsuspecting gardeners, nature lovers and macho dudes will end up at the Loma Linda hospital with potentially debilitating, and on rare occasions deadly, snakebites.
The hospital has one of the busiest snakebite units in the nation, with as many as 50 patients a year. And with development encroaching into the deserts, mountains and foothills, clashes between human and serpent show no sign of slowing.
Bush, 39, has seen it all.
For example, the guy whose pet southern Pacific rattlesnake bit him — and hung on for 15 seconds. The man was left twitching uncontrollably and bleeding from his nose and gastrointestinal tract, the venom breaking down the tissue in its path.
Or the Jehovah's Witness who tried to toss a Mojave rattler out of a yard where kids were playing, and ended up turning blue, vomiting and unable to open his eyes after the snake nipped his index finger. Because of his religious beliefs, the man refused to accept a transfusion, even when the snake's venom made his blood dangerously thin. He recovered after a five-day hospital stay.
Not all patients' symptoms are so dramatic. Sara McDaniel, 45, was clambering down rocks in Joshua Tree National Park earlier this month when a rattlesnake struck her middle finger. McDaniel snapped a photo of the snake before heading to a hospital in Twentynine Palms en route to Loma Linda.
"I thought I touched a cactus," said McDaniel, looking slightly worried in her emergency-room bed. Bush examined her left hand, swollen and bluish, as he marked the venom's path up her arm with a pen and administered a $912-per-vial snakebite antidote.
Bush, who owns a couple dozen snakes himself, has been fascinated by the creatures since he was 5, when his grandfather gave him a pet hognose snake.
"I just think they're the coolest animal on the planet," Bush said.
While Figueroa waited in a Loma Linda examination room for Bush to check on his purplish finger, Bush said he fit the typical snakebite victim profile: a younger man whose curiosity gets the better of him.
"Young males ... for whatever reason, feel the need to pick up a snake (and) get bitten on the hand," Bush said. "Bravado is something in our makeup."
"I just wanted to kill it and keep it; no intention of getting hurt," Figueroa said as he left the hospital with a partly numb index finger and his attacker's body in a plastic tub of formaldehyde for him to carry home, at his request.
(CA) Snake season puts bite on ER