My venomous snake bite story.
I had been doing snakes show for a while, when I decided that I should add venomous snakes to my shows. I researched about the snakes and the venom and what may happen to me if I were to get bit. I decided that I would start to get the meanest, nastiest and fastest non venomous snakes that I could find and if I could handle them, then the venomous ones would be a piece of cake. I read and watched everything that I could find on them.
Now the time had come for me to get my first venomous snake, I knew where to get it, because a pet store that I was going to out of state sold them. I purchased a baby Canebrake Rattlesnake. What a proud father I was. The first thing I did was to put him in a 29 gal tank in my bedroom with a heating light on it. The light was put on the side of the tank, because the tank was very high. Within an hour the heat from the light shattered the glass on the tank. Now I was not sure that getting this snake was such a good idea. But I purchased a new tank and started again.
Like anything with me, one of anything is never enough. And my collection of them grew and grew and grew.
When I got my own venomous snake room, I brought my youngest son in as my assistant. He never handled the snake directly, but was right there with me. I taught him all the safety procedures if any one was to get bit. We handled the snakes by tubing them, if we had to do any work on a snake. Otherwise we used snake sticks and the tailing method to deal with them. We would milk the venom from them to see how much venom each snake would yield and how fast it would replenish itself. The local College sent zoology students over so they could learn how to handle and care for snakes. The one girl was so brave that she stuck her hand into the mouth a Gaboon Viper to measure its fangs.
A little background on how I got the snake that bit me.
I was a DJ on a Saturday morning radio program. It was called Redneck and the Snakeman. Well Redneck was going to Texas on vacation and was staying with a friend that worked for the state road crew. While he was there is noticed a 55 gal. drum in his backyard. In the drum was a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. He told Redneck that they were very common in Texas and they removed them from the road all the time. He said that this one was going to stay in the drum until he died. Jokingly he ask Redneck, “Do you want it?” My buddy thought of me and thought what a better gift to give me.
The snake was put into a 5 Gal. bucket with an air cleaner lid from a car, taped over it with electrical tape. This snake was driven all the way back to New York like this in his trunk.
I loved the snake, but being it was a wild caught snake it refused to eat. I would never let a snake starve if I could do something about it, so I tube fed him. A procedure I learned from a center that milked snakes for their venom.
One day I was in a hurry and I had to feed the snake. I tubed him, and was having a little trouble getting the feeding tube in his mouth with him in the tube, so I decided to take him out of the tube and feed him. I did not have him directly behind the head and the moment I removed the tube from his mouth, he turned his head and nailed me.
Keeping my frame of mind, I yelled to my son that I was bit. I put the snake back into its enclosure and locked the room. At this point my son remembering all he was taught, had the suction kit ready and while I was using the kit he was putting an ace bandage on my arm to slow down the venom from moving through my system.
This was the most painful thing that I have ever felt in my life. It felt like a third degree burn (hence the name HOT bite) and the pain was very intense. The intense pain lasted for a week and a terrible nagging pain lasted for a month. I thought that it might not be as bad as things seamed, so I went into the living room and watched TV for 4 hours. This from a man who cut off his finger with a table saw and put it back on with tape, never going to the hospital. When I started to get sick in my stomach, I knew that the venom had worked its way into my system and it was time to go to the hospital. My wife was called at work and she came home and drove me to the hospital. My hospital was not prepared to deal with a venomous snake bite. They had the antivenom, but did not know how to use it. They wanted to cut half my hand off to stop the venom and I would not let them. I had the phone number of a venom specialist in the Bronx and gave it to them. He told them what to do and to have me air lifted to the Bronx hospital so he could treat me.
He was a teacher at a near by hospital and used me as a class project. I did not mind, because he was a nice guy. He told me that keeping venomous snakes was illegal, but he was not going to turn me in. I told him that I had the license and was legal.
I stayed in the hospital for a week and then came home and was out of work for another week. My left thumb is still deformed, but I survived. I went back up to the snake room and started handling the snakes again, but this time my hand was shaking a little. I got over that fast.
Well that’s the whole story of my bite. Was it worth it? Yes. Did I learn anything? Yes, never take short cuts when handling venomous snakes. If I would have stuck with the safety procedures I would never had been bit.
Venomous snakes that I use to keep.
1- Canebrake Rattlesnake
1- Timber Rattlesnake
1- Great Basin Rattlesnake
1- Desert Horned Viper
5- Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes
4- Gaboon Vipers
2- Puff Adders
2- Southern Copperheads
1- Mamushi Viper
1- Prairie Rattlesnake
2- Red Diamond Rattlesnake
1- White Lipped Pit Viper
1- Mangrove Snake
9- Western Hognose Snakes (yes they have venom and rear fangs)
They are the BB guns of the snake world
4- Eastern Hognose Snakes
1- Popes Tree Viper
1- Rock Rattlesnake
1- Avicenna Viper
1- Cottonmouth/Water Moccasin
2- Hairy Bush Vipers
2- Sidewinders
1- Rhinoceros Viper
1- Mojave Rattlesnake
1- Egyptian Cobra
3- Neo-Tropical Rattlsnakes
1- Albino Cobra
3- Indian Cobras
3- Big Eyed Vipers
My friend Redneck
The bucket the snake came home in
After math
Tube feeding the snake that bit me
Thumb after the bite, healed
Finger I cut off with a table saw and taped back on, healed. Yes it is permanently crooked.
