Sad news people. Remember the Doberman from my previous post, my neighbour's dog? He died. It was, in my opinion, one of the worst ways to go. And what scares me most of all is, it very easily could have been my dad.
On 11th November, 2009 at around 20:00, my neighbour's dog, Suryaa, started barking... a lot more than usual. Those of you who live near a house that has a Doberman know how noisy they are. Now imagine them being even noisier. He was barking continuously for at least a half hour. My dad went out to investigate, armed with nothing but a 'kathi'.
What he found was that a snake had entered their compound!
The colony security guards and my neighbour's driver were at a loss. Against his better judgement my dad did the unthinkable. HE PINNED THE SNAKE'S HEAD DOWN AND PICKED IT UP BY IT'S NECK! It was 4 ½ feet long and nearly 2 inches in diameter. He then proceeded to put the snake in a plastic carrybag and handed it over to the security guards for them to dispose of it.
Now, as most of you know I would have done, he came home and Googled the type of snake. He identified it as a Russel's Viper (Vipera russellii/Daboia russelii) aka दाबोइया (Hindi) and घोणस (Marathi).
Having identified the snake, he realized the seriousness of keeping it alive. So, they built a bonfire and burnt the snake in it. I'm told, that's the safest way to dispose of it. Later they noticed that Suryaa was frothing at the mouth, indicating that the dog had been bitten.
For the faint hearted, please read no further. Suffice to know that the dog didn't make it. For those more interested in the effects of the venom of a Russel's Viper, read further.
The dog was also bleeding from some orifices. They found two puncture marks under his right cheek. The site showed swelling, bleeding and Consumptive coagulopathy.
Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), aka consumptive coagulopathy leads to the formation of small blood clots inside every vein and artery throughout the body which in turn causes uncontrolled bleeding from other places since all the platelets are used up!
The dog sank slowly through the night, excreting a lot of black digested blood. In eleven hours Suryaa was dead, in a ferocious bout of blood diarrhoea and blood vomiting, with massive general internal haemorrhage.
Now the most disturbing fact:
Polyvalent Snake Antivenin Serum for Russell's viper is supposedly a carefully controlled substance. You can get it only from Haffkine Institute, Parel, Mumbai. But apparently not at night.
So what is one to do if one is bitten by Russel's Viper at night? And my dad actually handled the damn thing. Russel's Vipers are know to bite through their lower lip and into a handler's hand! It is a member of the big four venomous snakes in India, which are together responsible for nearly all Indian snakebite fatalities. It was so easy for him to have been bitten. And the one place which had the antivenin wouldn't deliver it at night!
The antivenin is designed to negate the effects of above mentioned big four venomous snakes viz. the Indian Cobra (Naja Naja), the Russel's Viper (Daboia russelii), the Common Krait (Bungarus caeruleus) and the Saw-scaled Viper (Echis carinatus). And yet, it's so difficult to obtain! Little wonder then that there are so many deaths because of these snakes.
