Snakes on the loose

Reba said:
Rattlesnakes are bad here, too. This happened at a nearby park where my younger grandson works:

Snakebite victim improves
Brenda Rindge

Dec 8 2011 12:01 am Mar 23 8:09 pm

Zach Szala swallowed on his own Monday and gagged Wednesday when doctors put a tongue depressor in his mouth.

He is scheduled to have a tracheotomy today that could free him from the ventilator.

Those milestones have given friends and family encouragement that the Goose Creek 8-year-old is on his way to recovery from two rattlesnake bites.

"He's slowly, slowly making progress," said Zach's aunt, Ansley Crabtree. "Each day we get something really good."

Zach, who was bitten twice by a rattlesnake at Wannamaker County Park two weeks ago, is still in serious condition in intensive care at Medical University Hospital, according to officials there.

He was playing in the woods with his siblings and cousins on Nov. 23 under the supervision of Crabtree when he stepped over a log and apparently startled the rattler, which experts think may have been 6 feet long. It bit him twice in the calf.

Canebrake rattlesnakes have particularly toxic venom. In Zach's case, it has caused facial paralysis, which doctors hope will be temporary.

Zach can open his mouth and nod his head "yes" and "no." He doesn't open his eyes on his own, but has moved his right eye and acknowledged to doctors that he can see.

"I actually had a conversation with him today," Crabtree said. "It was a short one with him nodding his head, but that was very big. Nothing seems to have affected his brain, which is good."

The tracheotomy, which creates an airway through an incision and allows breathing without the use of nose or mouth, is reversible.

"They put it on the schedule because they think it's time to do it," said Zach's father, Anthony Szala. "I'd rather him not have surgery, but at this point, the benefits outweigh the negatives for us."

If Zach is unable to breathe on his own, he can be hooked up to the ventilator through the tracheotomy.

"We hope that's not the case, but if it is, we'll try again in a few days to remove the ventilator," Szala said.

The tracheotomy will allow Zach to use his mouth more and will also allow him to be more mobile.

"Even with the paralysis, he could get up and move around if he weren't hooked up to the ventilator," Szala said. "You can tell he gets really frustrated being in the bed. He's an 8-year-old boy."

Snakebite victim improves - Post and Courier
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:( I hope the boy will have a complete recovery .
 
whatdidyousay! said:
:( I hope the boy will have a complete recovery .
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Six months later:

Goose Creek boy bitten by rattler continues to make progress
BY BRENDA RINDGEbrindge@postandcourier.com
Jun 3 2012 12:14 am

GOOSE CREEK — Like many 9-year-old boys, Zach Szala rushes into his house from his dad’s pick-up truck after school and drops his book bag, eager to get to the business of play.

A bike ride down the street with his little sister, Abbey, 7, turns into a race.

He couldn’t wait for Friday, when school ended for the summer, finally giving him a chance to relax at the beach and go to day camp.

This has not been an easy year for Zach or his family – dad Anthony, mom Elizabeth and siblings Abbey and Ben, 2.

Six months ago, on the day before Thanksgiving, Elizabeth Szala was cleaning and preparing for the holiday, so her sister, Ansley Crabtree, took her own 6-year-old twins, Sam and Samantha, and the Szala children for an outing to Wannamaker County Park.

A fun day of play and exploration turned tragic when Zach stepped over a fallen tree trunk onto a 6-foot-long canebrake rattlesnake.

The snake bit Zach twice in the calf, injecting its venom into his body.

Within five minutes, Zach’s breathing was labored. By the time he arrived at the hospital, his life hung in the balance.

Doctors at Medical University Hospital had never seen a snakebite so bad and weren’t sure how to treat it. They gave him vial after vial of antivenin — more than 40 in all — and watched how his young body reacted.

For three weeks, he was in intensive care, hooked up to life-saving machines as his body fought off the toxin. He was temporarily paralyzed from the neck up, unable to smile, swallow, or blink for weeks.

Finally, on Dec. 30, he went home, where the road to recovery has been long, but the Szalas feel like they are finally getting back into their old routine.

“I think that very, very recently, we are back to normal,” Elizabeth said. “As much as we can remember normal being, anyway.”

Anthony agreed.“When you start yelling at them normally, I guess things are normal,” he said.

Residual effects The snake fang punctures are barely visible on the back of Zach’s calf. He’s got a small scar on the bottom front of his neck, remnants of the tracheotomy, and his pupils are still slightly dilated. His body movement is somewhat jerky.

“I can tell his speech isn’t the way it was,” Anthony said. “Maybe it will come eventually, but right now he has a little more of a country accent and is a little more hesitant when he talks.”

Zach is still regaining his coordination, strength and stamina. The Szalas figure those things are negligible.

To help improve his upper body strength, his mother has enrolled him in a summer camp that has swimming, golf and tennis.

Every day, there are fewer reminders of his ordeal. At Howe Hall Arts Infused Magnet School, Zach is just one of the guys.

At home, his favorite activities are playing Mario Bros. on the Wii, which also helps in his physical recovery, and Pokemon.

He marked his ninth birthday in April with a party at Frankie’s Fun Park, where he and friends played miniature golf, rode bumper boats and go-karts and played arcade games.

Just a few weeks ago, he finished physical, occupational and speech therapy, and that freed him to return to school full time.

A recent standardized test revealed Zach’s math skills to be on par with sixth-graders’, an accomplishment Zach shrugs off with a simple explanation: “I like adding and multiplying.”

He stays at school an extra 90 minutes several days a week to make up for the 50 or so days he missed so that he can to move on to fourth grade in the fall with his classmates.

“He was a good student,” Anthony said. “It’s just a technicality that he’s got to make up the actual days.”

Seeing the goodThrough their experience, the Szalas have seen the best of humanity.

People they didn’t know organized fundraising golf tournaments and motorcycle poker runs. Strangers sent prayers, cards and money to help pay bills. Doctors, nurses and paramedics have made house calls to check on Zach’s progress.

The Stingrays held a fundraiser at one of their hockey games. Chris Swetckie, the Szalas’ next-door neighbor and the principal of Zach’s school, pushed the boy in a wheelchair for the final 1.2 miles of the Charleston Youth Marathon.

“I have 100 new friends on Facebook that I don’t even know, just because of this,” Elizabeth said. “The entire community rallied around us. We were overwhelmed. It really meant a lot.”

But the experience has also left more scars than the one on Zach’s neck.

Abbey has checked out every book on snakes from the school library. For months, Ben asked about going to the doctor.

“I know I’ve probably gone through the stages of post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Elizabeth, a stay-at-home mom. “I went through it and it could have been a heck of a lot worse. I still, even last week, was all emotional.”

They are ready to move on. “We are definitely ready to put the tragic part of it behind us and the pain and suffering and everything, but not the good stuff that we saw out of it,” Elizabeth said. “And I fight every day to stop and enjoy life rather than always worrying so much.”

Goose Creek boy bitten by rattler continues to make progress - Post and Courier
 
sonocativo said:
Ive had smoked Rattle Snake, tastes great, lots of bones, but very light meat kinda like fish, doesn't taste like chicken more like lobster in texture, but tastes great.
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We took our walk tonight when the rain stopped. Guess what? Another cottonmouth snake! This one was about 12-18 inches long, coiled up, and dead, in the middle of the road. It was probably run over by a car. We think it might have been headed for the higher ground of the road because of the rain.
 
Also, if you were inclined to ... buy some King Snakes - they actively pursue and devour venomous snakes.
 
Yikes! On tonight's walk, a two-foot cottonmouth chased us! Then it slithered into the storm drain. We walked the rest of the way down the middle of the street.

I've never seen so many snakes in such a short time. :eek:
 
Oh, great! Now we have a snake in our birdhouse!
 
Reba said:
No. TCS tore down the bird house today and the snake was gone. (It was an old bird house.)

The snake is probably hiding somewhere new now.
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Speaking of birdhouses I think the sparrows are doing some remodeling on their nest b/c I found a part of it on my deck and a bird flew out of it when I open my sliding door. I thought they where gone for the year and would be coming back in the spring. You better check car before getting in , I been hearing of people finding snakes in their car and trunk.
 
THOUGHT ONLY POISEN snakes were rattle snakes...leave them alone they wont bite
 
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