Poisonous snakebite sends man to ER

TAMPA – Growing up in Tampa, Mike Hendershot thought he knew snakes. He’s even been bitten by non-poisonous ones a couple of times.

So Sunday night when he and his friends saw a foot and a half long snake under their car, Mike thought it was harmless.

“I’ve messed with snakes before. I saw this one, it looked like a garden snake to me. I just tried to, I was messing around. I tried to grab it,” he said.

But the snake turned its head, striking him. Its fangs pierced Mike’s middle finger on his right hand.’

“It was as if someone hit me with a hammer on the finger. And then a needle. It was just a stinging, numbing pain,” he recalled, from his hospital room at University Community Hospital, in Tampa.

The 22-year-old recent FSU grad said he and his friends went on the internet and saw a picture of the snake. It turned out it was a water moccasin, a highly venomous snake.

Mike’s friends rushed him to UCH, where he received 12 vials of anti-venin.

Hospital staff have had a lot of experience in venomous snake bites.

Last year, UCH treated the most poisonous snake bites than any other hospital in the country, with 15.

Jim Maister, a clinical pharmacist with UCH, said this is the season for snakes.

“Yes, it is the season. Summertime. They are cold-blooded animals, so they do need to warm themselves in the sun. It’s one of those things, we have to be careful and we have to respect their environment too,” Maister said.

He’s particularly worried right now too.

“Because this week, next week, all the kids get out of school. And there are lots of areas that are under construction. Areas that are plowed out or mowed over. These animals need some place to go, so they are going to end up in your garage, under your car,” Maister said.

Maister also says we all need to respect these animal’s environment, and Mike Hendershot agrees. He admits it wasn’t as easy as he thought to detect the differences between the poisonous snakes and the harmless ones.

“Don’t grab them, that’s for sure. Just don’t even get around them,” Hendershot warned.