Deadly poisonous snake bites man in the hand

Snake bite victim threatens finger amputation

09/04/2015

When a snake owner from Extertal wanted to help one of his highly venomous Gabon vipers with a pair of tweezers to heal, the snake snapped. Thanks to the rapid action of the rescue teams and a relatively small amount of poison, the 48-year-old is no longer in mortal danger, but his finger may need to be amputated.

Man after snake bite save mortal danger
For about six years, the man holds, among other things, the highly toxic vipers. Although he knew that biting the animal could be fatal, he helped a 20-centimeter-long cub use tweezers to heal. The snake snaps and bites its owner in the middle finger. The Bissopfer immediately called the rescue service and was flown by helicopter to the Klinikum Bielefeld.

„The Gabon viper is one of the most venomous snakes ever, biting a human into the forearm and hitting a vein can kill you within a few minutes“, explained Björn Buschkamp, ​​dangerous animal expert of the Bielefeld fire brigade, compared to the online edition of the „Westphalia leaf“. Together with other experts, the 42-year-old advised on how to proceed. As it turned out, there was a suitable antidote available at Zoo Wuppertal. A police helicopter picked up the antiserum and immediately took it to the Bielefeld clinic. Although the amount of poison that the snake had given off when she was bitten was so small that there was no danger to the life of the 48-year-old snake owner, the loss of his finger is now threatened.

Since the man wore no protective glove, his behavior is assessed as negligent, so that the fire brigade now demands the assumption of the operational costs of him. „Something like that does not happen to a conscientious owner“, says Buschkamp. (Ag)

Picture: Katharina Wieland Müller