SANTA ANA : Snake-Bite Victim Arrives With Snake
A 36-year-old Garden Grove man was hospitalized in critical condition Sunday after he walked into a Santa Ana fire station complaining that he had been bitten by a rattlesnake.
The victim, identified by hospital officials as Arturo Hernandez, entered the fire station at 1029 W. 17th St. with a woman who was holding the live snake by its tail and neck, Battalion Chief John Chambers said. The victim had apparently captured the snake before it bit him, Chambers said.
Hernandez was the third victim of a rattler to be treated in recent weeks at UCI Medical Center in Orange.
Dr. Philip Macneil said the snake bite was probably the worst ever seen at the hospital’s emergency room. Like the other recent snake bite victims, Hernandez was treated with antivenin medication. He was expected to survive, Macneil said.
Animal control officers were summoned to the fire station, where they trapped the snake in a metal box, Chambers said. After the snake was killed, it was transported with Hernandez to the hospital in case it was needed to identify the venom.
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