SULPHUR SOUTHWEST DAILY NEWS (Louisiana) 01 July 05 Man hospitalized after coral snake bite
The Louisiana State Police was notified by the West Calcasieu/Cameron Hospital Thursday morning and advised they needed to get some anti-venom medication delivered to their hospital as fast as they could for a patient that had been bitten by a Coral snake.
Kenneth Dugas, 25 years old, of Kaplan was staying at a friend's camp on Edwards Road off of the North Fork of the Calcasieu River. Around 07:00 a.m. Thursday morning, Dugas was walking around the camp and felt something biting his shoe. He looked down and noticed a snake on his shoe. Without thinking, he tried to knock it off and the snake bit him on the finger. After capturing it with some friends he recognized that it was a Coral snake. The hospital rarely see patients that have been bitten by a Coral snake. They knew they had to find some anti-venom and with the help of Poison Control on the phone, they located some. Unfortunately, the closest anti-venom that could be found was located at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.
The hospital staff notified Troop D to ask if there was any way the anti-venom could be shuttled from New Orleans. Immediately, Troop B in New Orleans was notified and told about the situation. After calls were made to State Police Headquarters in Baton Rouge, the shuttle was approved. Headquarters sent the State Police Air Support Helicopter to New Orleans to pick up the anti-venom. The package was shuttled directly to the West Calcasieu/Cameron Hospital and the anti-venom medication was administered to Mr. Dugas. The package was transported in less that an hour and a half, as apposed to shuttling it by ground units, which would have taken at least three hours. The snake was turned over to the Sulphur City Animal Control officer for disposal. As of 3:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Mr. Dugas is resting in stable condition and will be admitted into the intensive care unit for observation.
When it comes to the life of another, we will do what we can to preserve it. The Louisiana State Police do emergency shuttles of medication, human organs, and blood when there is an emergency or the package is of an official nature requiring immediate delivery. A relay is not designed to be a taxi service or short cut to the mail service. The Louisiana State Police believes in our motto of "Courtesy, Loyalty, Service" to the public every day when we report for duty.
http://www.sulphurdailynews.com/articles/2005/06/30/news/news2.txt
WNOL (New Orleans, Louisiana) 01 July 05 Audubon Zoo rescues snake bite victim (Meredith Mendez)
New Orleans: Audubon Zoo workers rushed to the rescue of a Louisiana man after he was bitten by a deadly coral snake. It happened near the Calcasieu River in Sulphur, near Lake Charles.
Coral snakes are easy to spot with trademark bright red and yellow bands mixed in with black. That's why herpetologist Kevin Bowler at the Audubon Zoo knew immediately what he was dealing with when he got a phone call from a Sulphur doctor. Deadly with just one bite, coral snakes are all over Louisiana according to Bowler, "They're a lot more common than people think, they're fossorial, they live underground most of the time so they're not on the surface."
But the snake that bit 25-year old Kenneth Dugas was on the surface just near a camp near the Calcasieu River. Dugas told doctors he felt something biting his shoe and without thinking he tried to knock it off. That's when the snake bit his finger. Snake experts say Dugas did the right thing by immediately shaking the snake off. They say it's likely very little venom got in. However, because these snakes are so deadly, doctors knew they needed help. Bowler says the zoo keeps anti-venin on hand just in case, so he packaged it up and State Police rushed it to the Superdome helipad where it was flown across the state to help Dugas.
Dugas is now in stable condition and is expected to recover. Bowler said if you ever see a coral snake, the best thing to do is to walk calmly in the opposite direction. If you ever bitten by a coral snake, he said, you should go immediately go to a hospital.
http://wb38.trb.com/news/wgno-zoorescuessnakebitevictim07012005,0,7927813.story?coll=wnol-news-1
KPLC (Lake Charles, Louisiana) 30 June 05 Man Bitten by Coral Snake (Marty Briggs)
A Kaplan man is lucky to be alive after he was bitten by a coral snake early Thursday morning. The man was bitten at a camp site just north of Sulphur. Because coral snakes are rare in this area, anti-venom had to be flown in from the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans -- but that serum would have never made it without the quick work of West Cal Cam Hospital and Louisiana State Police.
25-year old Kenneth Dugas was bitten by this snake while staying at a friend's camp on Edwards Road off of the north fork of the Calcasieu River. It happened around 7:00 AM. Dugas was walking around the camp and felt something biting at his shoe. He looked down and noticed the snake, and without thinking, tried to knock it off. That's when the snake bit him. Dugas was taken to West Cal Cam Hospital for treatment. "Normally, we don't get that many coral snake bites in the area, so we had to acquire some anti-venom and the only place we could find it was at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. Because of the distance and everything else, we called State Police to see if they could assist us in getting the anti-venom delivered from New Orleans to here. If not, it would have taken quite a few more hours before we could actually start treating the patient," says Robert Daughdril of West Cal Cam.
Daughdril says the hospital was able to avoid an even more dangerous situation because of the help given by the State Police. "The venom in a coral snake is a neurological toxin, and we've got to get it in as quick as we can, so time is of the essence," says Daughdril. Sal Messina with Louisiana State Police, Troop D, adds: "As the Colonel always says, our motto is on the doors, it says 'courtesy, loyalty and service.' This is one service that State Police provides in an emergency situation."
The coral snake has been turned over to the Sulphur city animal control officer for disposal. Dugas is in stable condition with a swollen left middle finger and resting comfortably at West Cal Cam Hospital. He's in the intensive care unit for observation.
http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3544526&nav=0nqxbfOV
HERALD-TRIBUNE (Sarasota, Florida) 30 June 05 State police fly coral snake antivenin to west La bite victim
Sulphur, La (AP): A 25-year-old man was bitten by a coral snake Thursday, and state police flew across the state to bring the antivenin needed to treat him.
Kenneth Dugas, 25, was in stable condition Thursday afternoon, under observation in the intensive care unit at West Calcasieu/Cameron Hospital, Trooper Sal Messina said. His left middle finger was swollen, but not severely, Messina said in a telephone interview.
He said Dugas was walking around a friend's camp off of the North Fork of the Calcasieu River about 7 a.m., waking people up, when he felt something on his tennis shoe.
He looked down, saw a snake, and, without thinking, tried to brush it off. It bit the very end of his finger.
Fingers and the webbing between toes are about the only places coral snakes can bite people, because they're very slender. This one was about 2 1/2 feet long, but only as big around as a pinky finger, Messina said.
Dugas shook the snake off immediately - the right thing to do. Coral snakes don't have fangs, and the longer they bite, the more venom gets into the body.
Dugas and some friends used a mop and a stick with a ring on it to get the snake into an ice chest. They realized it was a coral snake, and took Dugas and the snake to the hospital.
Coral snake bites are rare. The hospital staff, with help from the local poison control agency, found that the closest antivenin was at New Orleans' Audubon Zoo.
So they called state police, who organized the helicopter flight that got the remedy to Dugas in less than 90 minutes. A squad-car relay would have taken at least three hours.
"The snake was turned over to the Sulphur City Animal Control officer for disposal," Messina wrote in a news release.
It can take hours before coral snake bites really start to hurt, according to the Merck Manual of Medical Information.
Messina interviewed Dugas in the hospital. "He said it was stinging like fire," Messina recounted.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050630/APN/506301145
