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Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by tigers9 on March 24, 2008
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CO2 is great for large mammals, will not kill them, will direct them in the direction u want them to go, as well as startle them.
http://www.rexano.org/ResponsibleOwnership/Safety/KeeperSafetyFrame.htm
Z
<< Fire and rescue workers took the suitcase outside, opened it and blasted it with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, essentially freezing the snake and killing it, Barksdale said.
>>
Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
By MATTHEW BARAKAT – 6 hours ago
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Maybe he heard a faint rattling around in his luggage, but he surely never assumed the sound came from a stowaway snake sealed in his bag.
Alas, that's what happened to Andy Bacas, an Arlington man who was taken to the hospital Monday after being bitten by what authorities believe was a juvenile canebrake rattlesnake.
Bacas, a rowing coach at Yorktown High School, told fire and rescue personnel that he reached into his luggage Monday morning after returning from a team trip to South Carolina when he felt a sharp pain. That's when he saw the nearly foot-long snake and quickly slammed the luggage shut with the snake inside, said Chief Ben Barksdale, spokesman for the Arlington County Fire Department.
Fire and rescue workers took the suitcase outside, opened it and blasted it with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher, essentially freezing the snake and killing it, Barksdale said.
"The guy who responded had seen it done on TV," Barksdale said of the technique, adding that it can be effective for bees or other wild animals.
Bacas was in stable condition Monday afternoon at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
Barksdale said he had no information that the snake was deliberately put into the luggage.
Bob Myers, director of the American International Rattlesnake Museum in New Mexico, said it's conceivable that a snake would crawl into luggage seeking warmth or shelter, though his first instinct was to suspect some sort of prank.
The venom from a canebrake rattlesnake can be particularly harmful, but a juvenile rattlesnake is not usually large enough to deliver enough venom to be lethal, Myers said. While the snake found in Arlington was less than a foot long, adult canebrakes can grow to a length of six feet.
"There's an old wives' tale that says a baby rattlesnake bite is worse than an adult bite, but that's just not true," Myers said.
Myers said three or four people die each year from rattlesnake bites in the United States, out of perhaps 8,000 bites a year.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h68tzCWN5za0vs-NCvNDH4G2SQLwD8VK2HV80
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by Cro on March 25, 2008
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I find it interesting that the snake has been described both as an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake and as a Canebrake Rattlesnake, depending on which article you read.
I find this more interesting: "Bacas, a high school rowing coach, had been on a six-day trip to Summerton, South Carolina, with about 80 students, said Mike Krulfeld, director of student activities at Yorktown High School in Arlington. Krulfeld said he did not think the incident was a student prank."
Humm........ coach goes on trip to SC with 80 students, and winds up with a rattlesnake inside of his suit case ? You would think he might have noticed the snake when he packed the suit case ? I am betting one of the students does not like the coach much, LOL !
Best Regards JohnZ
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by hapkidocrochunter on March 25, 2008
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i mean, firemen rush into burning buildings to rescue people, theyll rescue your little soft fluffy kitty stuck in a tree, hell, they even dealt with the twin towers and that had to be a scary situation, but why wouldn't they just let the snake go, take the whole suitcase outside and dump it, or release it in the wild? plus it was "nearly a foot long" a small one, and they still had to kill it? come on, they usually deal with wildlife situations, they should know how to humanly deal with "problem" wildlife, evan a monster 12 incher.
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by Littlesnakedaddy on March 25, 2008
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Interesting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/24/AR2008032401471.html
Stowaway Rattlesnake Bites Arlington Man
By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; B01
Unpacking a duffel bag in your Arlington County home seems pretty harmless. But that's what Andrew Bacas was doing yesterday when a rattlesnake bit him.
Bacas, the varsity boys' crew coach at Yorktown High School, had just returned home from a spring break conditioning trip to South Carolina with his team. He was unpacking his bag about 9:30 a.m. yesterday, after driving home Saturday, when he felt a sharp pain on his right hand.
"This little monster got into his gear somehow," Esther Bacas, the coach's mother, said of the 10-inch-long snake.
Somehow, her 49-year-old son managed to zip up the duffel bag to keep the snake inside and then call 911. Rescue workers rushed Bacas to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. His mother said his right hand was so swollen that he couldn't hold the phone to talk to her from his intensive-care bed.
While Bacas was being given an antivenom serum at the hospital, rescue workers were back at his house in the 3400 block of North Venice Street with a potentially dangerous snake on their hands.
Chief Benjamin Barksdale said his rescue workers knew just how to handle the delicate situation: freeze the snake.
Using a 10-foot pole, rescue workers gingerly unzipped the duffel bag, just enough to slip in the nozzle of a carbon dioxide extinguisher, Barksdale said. Then, zap!
"One of the guys had seen it on TV," Barksdale said. "But we've used it before to scare dogs away or freeze rodents."
The Animal Welfare League of Arlington was called in to remove the frozen snake's body. Then authorities were able to positively identify the culprit as a juvenile canebrake rattlesnake, one of the deadliest snakes in the United States.
No one is sure how the snake got into Bacas's duffel bag, but his mother said her son believes it somehow slipped in while he was in South Carolina, then made the trip to Arlington undetected. Arlington police said they do not suspect foul play.
Karl Betz, a reptile expert at the Jacksonville Zoo in Florida, said canebrake bites have caused deaths, but usually those fatal blows are from snakes much larger than the one that attacked Bacas. It was clearly a baby, he said.
Betz said canebrake bites can cause tissue damage and affect the nervous system. In extreme cases, bites can cause respiratory arrest and heart stoppage.
"In my experience, it's the second-deadliest snakebite you can get in the U.S.," Betz said, after a bite from an eastern diamondback rattlesnake. "But this is the best-case scenario for being bit by a canebrake: the fact that it was a juvenile snake with a limited amount of venom."
Betz said canebrakes are a lowland snake, found mostly in swampy areas throughout the eastern half of the United States and as far west as Texas. He said they've been found as far north as Canada.
Or Arlington.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
Maybe Karl, the expert, would like to tell us how many "canebrakes" have been found in Canada?
LOL
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by Buzztail1 on March 26, 2008
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I actually thought she did a very objective article with the facts that she was given.
I am sure that the difference between what I said and what was printed fell out due to editing for space.
Here is the original and, of course, you can see above what was printed:
"Canebrakes are a lowland form of the Timber Rattlesnake, which is found throughout the eastern half of the United States, as far west as Texas and as far north as Canada. Canebrakes are normally found mostly in swampy areas of the coastal lowlands as far north as southeastern Virginia."
For the record, I have personally caught Canebrake Rattlesnakes in Suffolk, Virginia.
Thanks for finding the article for me.
R/
Karl H. Betz
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by CharlieO on March 27, 2008
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I normally don't get too involved in the discussions, but I noted that someone questioned whether crotalus horridus does occur in Canada (as averred by Karl B.).
If I recall correctly from my readings here, there is no official distinction between canebrake and timber as subspecies. Based on that, I did a quick google...
http://nhic.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nhic/elements/el_report.cfm?elid=180784
The page referenced is from the Ontario Natural Heritage Information Center. Admittedly the source is a bit outdated (last update is 2004), but it lists crotalus horridus as an endangered "at-risk" species in Ontario (which is clearly in Canada).
Just my $.02.
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RE: Snaked Stowed Away in Luggage Bites Man
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by Cro on March 27, 2008
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Yep, the highland form or morph of Crotalus horridus (AKA Timber Rattlesnake) is rarely still found in Canada.
The lowland form or morph of Crotalus horridus (AKA Canebrake Rattlesnake) is not found there.
Technically, both snakes are the same, but that is like saying that Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, and all other humans are all the same ! Perhaps the mDNA makes us all the same, however, the "morphs" are sure different! Or it is like saying that a German Shepherd is the same as a Chihuahua ! Again, the morphs are very different.
It sounds to me like Karl made that quite clear in his interview, and that the editors of the paper did a bit of a hatchet job on what he said, because they probably did not understand, or care about the difference or accuracy. News papers are not well known for getting the facts right, as long as the story fits the coloum width, and is sensationalized.
Best Regards JohnZ
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