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Asia-Wildlife expert killed by snake bite
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by tigers9 on October 13, 2008
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I know that media sometimes misquotes, but in case they got it right this time, why would he think he was not affected by the venom? Denial it can not happen to him, symptoms not as bad as reported in the literature, etc…?
Z
Wildlife expert killed by snake bite
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
By our correspondent
Karachi
Wildlife conservationists have lost one of the most intelligent and daring field officers, Rafiq Rajput, who died on Sunday of a snake bite at his residence in Karachi.
He caught a cobra during his recent visit to Jewani, a coastal area of Balochistan. According to his colleagues, Rajput was trying to put the snake in a particular bottle when it bit him. However, he was sure that the poison will not affect him as he had experience catching poisonous and harmful animals, including reptiles and mammals. But after sometime he felt like collapsing due to the poison and asked his family members to shift him to a nearby hospital. Unfortunately, he died on the way.
Dr Firdous Hyder, his colleague, who was with Rajput during the survey on coral reef at Jevani coast, told The News that he found a snake, which according to Rajput was not local. He took it in a cloth bag for further identification. “When we went to see the turtle at the beach and returned at the place where we stayed, the snake was missing from the bag. Rajput started searching for it, and found it at the rooftop. He caught it again and brought it to his residence,” Hyder said. He was brought to the Jinnah Hospital where doctors said that there was no anti-snake bite vaccine available. The family sent a person to buy the vaccine from Aga Khan Hospital but he died before receiving the medicine.
Once during an interview with The News, Rajput said, “Every Pakistani should prove that they are wildlife-friendly and protect the birds and animals around them. If we fail to do this, future generations will be unable to see these beautiful creatures in their neighbourhood. There is a need to launch an awareness campaign at the national level to save trees, green pastures and birds.” —JK
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=140850
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RE: Asia-Wildlife expert killed by snake bite
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by Cro on October 13, 2008
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Z, there have been a number of Herpetologists who have died because they did not use immediate first aid treatment.
The bites of some snakes do not produce much pain or swelling. Also, there is the tendency to think that if a snake is small, it will somehow be less deadly.
Machoism also comes into play. I once watched a fellow get bitten by a young of the year Eastern Diamond-backed Rattlesnake when he tried to pick it up too far back from behind the head. It turned around and nailed him. He kept saying that it did not bite him, but kept looking down at his hand, which was swelling and turning a bit black. Well, he was an old swamp codger and moonshiner, and he was not going to admit that the snake had bitten him, so, after about 15 minutes of him showing us more snakes that he had for sale, we left. A couple of months later, I visited him again, and he had all his fingers still, and no lasting evidence of the bite.
Other good examples are Joe Slowinski, who did not apply a constriction bandage to his Krait bite until 3 hours after the bite. If the constriction bandage had been applied within minutes of the bite, he might not have a memorial book written about him, as he would probably still be running around acting like a jerk. And he had the knowledge to know the potential of even a tiny krait to produce severe envenomation. Again, machoism was probably part of the process.
Another example is the Boomslang that killed Karl P. Schmidt 28 hours after the bite, although there was not an antivenom available at that time, and compression bandaging was not in use then. Perhaps he would not have been bitten though if he had not been free handling an un-identified African snake ?
Best Regards John Z
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