Posted on 11/17/2011 5:50:49 PM PST by Morgana
UPDATE: Thursday 11/17 @ 6:55 p.m. MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A young woman has already undergone four surgeries and is still in intensive care after suffering not one, but two copperhead snake bites.
Tara Williams, 21, of Logan was on a hunting trip with her boyfriend three weeks ago in Ritchie County when she stepped on a large copperhead snake. Click here to find out more!
Tara's mom tells WSAZ.com, the snake snapped at her and bit her twice and her boyfriend drove her to the hospital.
"Right now, mentally, she's having a hard time with this," said Tara's mother Mitzi Williams. "You know this is going to be rehabilitating for her."
Tara was on a ventilator Wednesday night as doctors removed part of her calf muscle and continued to try and relieve pressure.
Tara's mother, Mitzi Williams, is a nurse and has been by Tara's side since the accident.
"I mean I'm on the other side of the fence now," said Mitzi Williams. "You know I help others and it's different when it's your own -- it's hard to handle."
It's a painful reality as Tara's leg had to be sliced open to relieve the swelling and pressure.
She spent three days in the emergency room and a couple weeks later is when things took a turn for the worse.
Her mother says she was getting sick from the anti-venom and suffered more swelling.
"When this all happened to her, she knew, she knew what was going on," said Mitzi Williams. "She was terrified, frightened, she knew what it was coming to."
Familiar with the signs and symptoms as a respiratory therapy grad, Tara is now putting her faith in her surgeon's hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsaz.com ...
Two snake bites and anaphylaxis to boot. That’s a bad day.
“who has the snake ping?”
Laz?
Though not often deadly to an adult—or so I have read—the bite of a copperhead snake is something to be concerned about. An old guy once told me that he had been bitten on a finger while a youngster by a copperhead and that finger has been curled and useless all his life. Apparently, the poison went into once of the nerves on the finger.
A mongoose is your new pet.
Prayers up for her recovery!
I had a friend who went through that, but she was only bitten once. It was awful. Took a long time and much medical care to recover.
Agh, poor lady. My dad was from just outside of Wheeling, W. Va, and he saw plenty of those dang things growing up.
I caught a copperhead in my living room a few years ago.
I didn’t recognize it. I caught it live, put it in a small trash can. Our neighbor was a school teacher who was always taking different animals to school. She freaked out when I offered it to her; she knew what it was.
I have seen copperheads in Northern Kanawha county. Let me tell you what, those things take steroids.
Was at a camp reunion and saw one of those suckers. Two camp buddies passed right by the snake as it was sleeping on the ground. I was right behind them, saw them pass by it and froze! I screamed “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” and just pointed at it. People came running was was asking “WHAT MORGANA??” I just kept screaming and pointing at it. Finally I was able to say the word “SNAKE!” then they saw it. The copperhead woke up and looked around as if to say “what is going on here?”
Then people asked “why didn’t you say something when you saw the snake?” I said I did!! I said “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”!!!! Didn’t you hear me in Canada and clearly?
Snake Ping
I’m in line with the “sperts”; its really late in the year for a snake to be out. Perhaps the lady was near a den site. (Copperheads den enmasse, and usually return to the den they left in the spring.)
Copperheads are extremely hard to see - as I can attest from personal experience - often your nose is a better detector than your eyes; as they exude a distinctive odor. I also suspect the snake - already panicked by being stepped on - got hung up on her clothing hence inflicted a second bite.
Venom, (a highly specialized form of saliva ), exacts a heavy nutritional penalty for the snake, so they don’t expend it casually. Given its druthers most native snakes will “dry bite” or inject just a tiny amount of venom. (I suspect this most often happens when they strike bare skin.) In the instance described I suspect one; it was a large snake, and two; it expended two very large doses of venom.
The lady has already had a rough time and is due for more, along with scarring and probably some degree of physical disability . Sad, but “enjoying the wild” means acceptance of a degree of risk from its native inhabitants. Best wishes for her recovery ! >PS
When I was six living in Sumter, SC, I once filled my pockets with what I thought were “worms”. I was an independent kid and after a day of roaming through the swamps I came home where my Mother made me strip and immediately threw my clothes into the washer. I heard my Mother scream a few minutes later. Seems the little “worms” had swam out of my jean pockets and were treading water in the washer. Come to find out, they were Copperheads. I spent the next few hours with the medics and parents going over me head to toe in case I had been bitten. Later that night my parents went over my butt several times with a belt. From then on, my Mother made me turn my pockets inside out before I came back into the house.
“No amount is to large or to small. Please help this family in such an unexpected, tragic time.”
Man. She hunts too. I think I have a plane to catch.
Dude, you are freaking nuts. And sell the damn house.
That house had a large creek nearby and a golf course between us. We had all kinds of critters including Alligators on the fairways.
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