Florida Girl, 11, Bitten By Venomous Snake During Camping Trip
An 11-year-old girl was taken to intensive care after she was bitten by a poisonous snake while on a camping holiday.
Kelly Bajek's family was camping at Blue Spring State Park in Florida when her daughter Abigail shouted out while they were walking down a trail on Sunday, May 26.
"We were walking from the camp to the springs when she suddenly just started screaming that she was bitten by a snake," Bajek said.
"I saw the two fang marks. She was bitten in the inside of her left foot," The Daytona Beach Journal reported.
Bajek took a photo of the snake to show medical staff. Her daughter is recovering and "reacting normally to the snake bite but her foot is very swollen and bruised," she added.
Park rangers and paramedics found she had been bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake, so called because of its diminutive size.
Local snake trapper Bob Cross said this rattlesnake's length, which only reached a maximum of two feet, as well as its ability to camouflage itself, made it difficult to see.
They are blamed for most rattlesnake bites in Florida where they prospered in the dry conditions and are common in Volusia County and the Southeast.
"Pygmy rattlesnakes, even though they have the rattles, you cannot hear them prior to the bite," Cross told Fox 35 News.
Unlike the larger Diamondback rattlesnake, the pygmy's small size also makes their poison less dangerous but can be more serious if a child is bitten.
"Its body mass, versus venom. The younger the child, the more serious the bite," he added.
Carl Barden, owner of the Reptile Discovery Center in DeLand and director of the co-located Medtoxin Laboratories, a venom production facility, said a bite from a pygmy rattlesnake is almost never going to be lethal.
"They're pugnacious little guys. If you get close to them, they'll sometimes bite," he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Up to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year, but only about five die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC said more than 1,300 children are bitten by snakes each year in the U.S., with a quarter of bites taking place in Florida and Texas.
