cobra attack in maryland

[m21sniper]

Philly Zoo called to action to save Md. woman bitten by cobra

By GLORIA CAMPISI
Philadelphia Daily News

campisg@phillynews.com 215-854-5935

It was a strange story from start to finish, but the Philadelphia Zoo helped steer things toward a happy ending.

A woman told fire department emergency responders in Baltimore that she was getting into her car at a shopping-center parking lot Sunday night when she was bitten on the hand by a cobra, which she had picked up thinking it was a stick.

The woman, who officials didn't identify, apparently got the snake into a bag and brought it with her to a walk-in medical center, where it was isolated in a trash can, said Baltimore Fire Department spokeswoman Elise Amacost.

Fire department personnel rushed the woman from the clinic to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

As the drama unfolded in Baltimore, Jason Bell, assistant curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Philadelphia Zoo, was watching football on TV at his home in suburban Philadelphia.

An emergency phone call from Maryland Poison Control, which was searching for anti-venom through a Web site called the anti-venom index, propelled Bell out of his chair and into his office.

In a stroke of good fortune, the Philadelphia Zoo had anti-venom that would work for the bite of the cobra, a type called a "monocled cobra" from Southeast Asia, even though the zoo had no snakes of that kind at the zoo. It had the anti-venom for other cobras on display.

Bell said he packed up 30 vials of the refrigerated anti-venom, and waiting Pennsylvania State Police rushed it by car to a halfway point where they turned over the vials to a Johns Hopkins ambulance crew. They couldn't fly it by helicopter because of heavy rain on Sunday.

Doctors had to use 10 vials of the anti-venom to bring the woman around, Bell said. The anti-venom used was made in South Africa and costs about $150 a vial, he said.

Bell said the woman was lucky she was bitten on the finger and not closer to the heart, where bites can be deadly. The severity of the bite also depends on the amount of venom the snake injects and the general health of the victim.

Kim Hammond, a Baltimore-area veterinarian who helped search for anti-venom to save the woman, cast doubt on the parking-lot story, saying snakes, which are cold-blooded animals, cannot survive outdoors in cold weather.

The woman told authorities she was not the snake's owner and apparently never explained why she would pick up a stick in a parking lot in the first place.

The snake eventually ended up warm and cozy in a local zoo.

[legion]

Where's G.I. Joe when you need them?

[Talewinds]

That's all great, but I call BS on the stick-in-a-parking-lot bit.

[Dave L]

[BlueSkyJaunte]

If she tried to pick it up, thinking it was a stick, wouldn't it have most likely bitten her on the back of the hand?

[scottmandue]

I hate it when that happens!!!!

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I hate it when that happens!!!!

Yep!

This story is just a reminder that death can strike from anywhere, at any time, in absolutely the most bizarre way you'd imagine.

A cobra in Maryland....lol...crazy.

[masraum]

Great, not just one sort of toxin in the venom, with a monocled cobra, you get a cocktail.

Monocled Cobra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Contain powerful neurotoxin & cytotoxin. Pain and swelling may often follow after the bite. It causes many deaths within its range."

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by Talewinds

That's all great, but I call BS on the stick-in-a-parking-lot bit.

+1. A normal person would not a) pick up some random stick in the parking lot; b) after having been bitten, chase the thing down and catch it; c) just to happen to have a bag handy to catch it.

My guess it's an illegal (I assume) pet that got outta control.

[Joeaksa]

Damm! Darwin thwarted again!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Damm! Darwin thwarted again!

Pity, he does good work.

[Hugh R]

How did she get it in the bag without getting bit again? I got bit by a snake, I'm SURE I'd go after it with my bare hands! If was her pet.

[m21sniper]

Just imagine if she'd let it escape...

Next thing you know they'd be overrunning the joint like the anacondas in the Everglades are.