Snake Bite in La Bahia

Snake Bite in La Bahia

Dead Snake

 

As November marches on and autumn continues to linger it is worth a quick mention that there are still a lot of rattle snakes out there that have not begun their winter hibernation. A buddy of mine in La Bahia last night, not far from Marine Mart, was grazed by what I believe to be a western diamondback rattle snake as he entered his house. He heard the distinctive rattle of the snake and jumped just in time. He was grazed by the snake just above his Achilles heal but luckily his skin was not punctured by any fangs. He got off lucky. What most likely happened was that the snake was living in his front yard in the garden. When the new gardener came he over watered the garden which most likely drove the snake from his P1720393or her hiding spot and out into the terraza. If this incident had happened Saturday night when I had driven my buddy home after a night of decadence and debauchery this could have turned out very differently.

So with that info in mind what would have happened if my buddy had actually been bitten and received a real dose of snake venom. Where would you go for the nearest anti venom treatment. Just be safe we went down to rescate to have one of the guys look at my buddies near brush with disaster. What rescate said to us was that they if this had been a real snake bite they would have immediately gone to Guaymas and start treating a snake bite victim with what ever they had that might slow venom down while arranging transport to Hermosillo or Obregon.

That to me seems like a big waste of time rather than immediately transporting the victim to the nearest source of anti venom for immediate treatment. So with that in mind we decided to research were is the nearest source of anti snake venom from San Carlos. While doing that I found out that Mexico is one of the world leaders in anti venom production, but not because of snakes. According to  Alejandro Alagón Cano, an award winning researcher from the department of molecular sciences from the prestigious UNAM University in Mexico City it is the scorpion that does most of the damage in Mexico. There are around 300,000 cases a year of scorpion stings, in Mexico. It got so bad last year that inn April of 2014 the Sonoran Department of Health issued a warning in Obregon for scorpions and black widows. But what about the rattle snake? There is little information on line on snake bite stats in Sonora. It is proving difficult to get an answer on where you can get anti venom for rattle snake bites here in Sonora. Any body know? I will follow up in the comments section when I get the info. I called Dr. Caneli today but did not get a response. The boys at rescate that I spoke to were unsure as well.

 

3 Responses to Snake Bite in La Bahia

  1. Lucky. That looks more like a Mojave rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) than a western diamondback (C. atrox). It’s not just lore, but the venom is much more toxic in Mojaves.

  2. Another person on Facebook thought it looked like a Mohave and then yet someone else mentioned a black railed rattle snake.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.