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DAILY NEWS (Durban, S Africa) 15 November 05 Snake man survives green mamba encounter (Barbara Cole)
Kevin van der Merwe has always had a fascination for snakes and as curator at Durban's Fitzsimons Snake Park, he is in his element.
He handles dozens of snakes every day, gives demonstrations to the public in the snake pit and even gets to take some home to look after.
"I have a puff adder in my bedroom," he said. But his love was put to the test on Monday when a deadly green mamba struck while he was preparing for a demonstration.
"I was trying to get a green mamba from a branch with a hook stick, which is the proper equipment for handling snakes," he recalled from his bed at the trauma ward at St Augustine's Hospital.
If you used the correct equipment, it was unlikely that you would be bitten, he explained. But this time, the seven-year-old snake he was moving lost its balance, slipped and landed on the curator's shoulder.
Realising the danger, he was in, the nervous Van der Merwe stood motionless - but the next he knew, the snake had bitten him, "making two quick strikes" in his arm.
It was the first time the 19-year-old curator had been bitten by a venomous snake. A spectator who had been waiting to watch the demonstration, suddenly found herself playing heroine.
With time being of the essence, she loaded Van der Merwe into a car and rushed him to St Augustine's Hospital. On the way, he was already starting to feel the effects of the attack.
"I was getting pins and needles around the sites of the bites. I was starting to feel disoriented, although my co-ordination was still fairly good. Still, I was starting to worry," he said, talking through an oxygen mask.
And as a fair-haired thin-framed person, he knew he was in greater danger from the venom than other darker, bigger-built victims might be.
Ten minutes after the mamba struck, he was being hurried into the trauma unit, while the woman who came to his rescue, slipped away without leaving her name.
He was put on a drip, given intravenous therapy, anti-inflammatories and anti-venom and medication to prevent lock-jaw. He was transferred to the intensive care unit and kept there overnight.
How did he feel about snakes now? "I still love them. I have not been put off. I was in the snake's territory," he said, adding that he would like to thank the mystery woman who raced him to hospital.
Van der Merwe was one of three snake bite patients that doctors and staff had to treat within two hours on Monday.
Another was 11-year-old Riaana Eksteen of New Germany, who was bitten in her finger by a normal house snake while moving logs.
The other was 6-year-old Ridhaa Gillies, who told his mother Adela, when she picked him up from Berea West Primary school, that he had been bitten on the stomach by a snake in the school pool.
Both snakes were non-venomous, but the patients' doctors had taken the precaution of sending them to hospital.
A 15-year-old schoolboy survived being bitten by a black mamba last week.
Snake man survives green mamba encounter

Note to self: Never work underneath a Hot Snake, lest it fall on me.

Cheers!

Al
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"Snakes in Peru are not there for decoration, they really bite people."

Professor David Warrell, Omaha 10/21/05

Good note, Al. Since when does hair or skin color have any effect upon the severity of a snakebite? Also..why would a non-venomous snakebite "victim" be sent to a hospital?

~~Greg~~

>>Since when does hair or skin color have any effect upon the severity of a snakebite?

The only sense I can make of that statement is that they think the black Africans have some immunity to the native snakes, but I guess it could also be even less PC than that...

>>Also..why would a non-venomous snakebite "victim" be sent to a hospital?

I assume that means the referring doctor didn't know for sure that it was non-venomous and was just being cautious.