State police fly coral snake antivenin to west La bite victi
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 8:00 am
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wwltv.com
State police fly coral snake antivenin to west La bite victim
06/30/2005
Associated Press
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 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.
___
On the Net:
Snake bite information:
http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d000001-d0 ... 00054.html
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/995_snakes.html
http://geol.ucsb.edu/geo104a/snakes.html
wwltv.com
State police fly coral snake antivenin to west La bite victim
06/30/2005
Associated Press
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 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.
___
On the Net:
Snake bite information:
http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d000001-d0 ... 00054.html
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/995_snakes.html
http://geol.ucsb.edu/geo104a/snakes.html