A First Person Report

By Brenda Zoppe

I am writing this story to make parents and children aware of a danger it may sometimes be easy to forget.

It was about 8:30 in the evening on Monday, July 9. I was feeding the neighbor’s dogs and horse while my husband James was taking care of our horses. Suddenly he heard screaming in the neighboring hills, here in Lockwood Valley, not far from our home.

As the screaming continued he knew something must be very wrong. He ran toward the screams as fast as he could.

When he got there he found Lauren Leekly, our neighbor’s daughter, very upset and shaken. Then James saw our daughter, Jamie, sitting on a boulder, holding her ankle with both hands.

She yelled, "I’ve just been bit by a rattlesnake!"

James picked her up as fast as he could. He carried her down to a driveway where our neighbor Julie Leekly met him with her car. She also had heard her daughter’s screams. They headed for medical attention just as fast and safely as they could.

They went directly to Hall Ambulance in Frazier Park. When they got there, Julie jumped out of the car, banged on the door and yelled, "We have a snake bite here!"

The Hall employees came out, took Jamie’s blood pressure and said "we don’t have anti-venin here, take her directly to Henry Mayo, you can get there faster than we can."

So, Julie drove as fast as she could, answering my frantic phone calls.

Julie’s sons rode over on their ATVs to tell me that James and Julie had left immediately for the hospital with all the kids. Needless to say, I was frantic.

Julie did a great job of driving, under the circumstances. It was very scary.

Rattlesnake Bite Effects

Jamie weighs about 95 pounds. The venom went through her body quickly. By the time they got to Henry Mayo Hospital, Jamie’s vision was going. She couldn’t swallow. Her throat was closing up. Her leg and foot were swelling up and tingling all over.

Henry Mayo did a great job treating the emergency, but they do not have a pediatric ward, so we then had to give her an ambulance ride from Henry Mayo to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys. She stayed there for three days where she got a total of three vials of anti-venin.

What We Learned

We have all learned a very valuable lesson here. The lesson James would like Jamie to always remember is that we should never drop our guard when we are in a potentially hazardous or dangerous environment. In summertime, we must all be watching for snakes whenever we are in the hills here.

Jamie has lived up here all her life. She’s a great kid and has just graduated from El Tejon, ready to start High School next month.

Jamie once saw a mountain lion the size of a German shepherd pass by her on the trail behind our house. She was more afraid of running into one of those than a rattlesnake.

She did let her guard down.

She was having so much fun running and playing chase down the hill, that she didn’t see the snake.

If that rattler hadn’t picked that very spot as a good place to curl up and stay warm for the night, this wouldn’t have happened. But it did and it wasn’t the snake’s fault. He just reacted.

Lucky us, he wasn’t ready to strike—even feeling the vibration of kids running down the hill. Jamie stepped on him, woke him up and she got struck in an instant.

She knew immediately, what had happened. She waited on the boulder for her Dad.

This is a reminder to all of us that whenever we’re in a hazardous environment, no matter how much fun we’re having, we must remain alert.

Physical Therapy

The doctors say we were lucky. They say it was a moderate to medium snake bite, not severe. Jamie is back from the hospital and on the mend.

It will be a long haul though to get her back to normal, but she is doing better everyday.

Therapy started on Monday, July 23. She is on crutches, and they want her to start working to walk on her own.

She can actually put some weight on her foot today.

She’s a brave girl, and will have quite a story to tell about her summer vacation when she gets back to school.

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What To Do If You Get a Rattlesnake Bite

There are eight species of rattlesnakes found in California, including the highly venomous Mojave Green. Snakes are active year round in Southern California.

If you, your children or your pets are confronted by a snake, leave it alone! The best way to avoid a bite is to avoid the snake.

If you (or your children/ pets) are bitten, remember:

• Don’t panic! Stay calm and try to move as little as possible, blood circulation speeds up the spread of venom.
• Go to the nearest emergency room immediately, call ahead if possible to warn them a snakebite victim is coming in. Time to treatment is precious.
• Do not apply a tourniquet, ice or heat or try to cut the wound to suck venom out. This can result in secondary infection or envenomation, excessive bleeding or even loss of a limb.
• Apply a cool, wet cloth to the wound.

A rattlesnake vaccine for dogs is available at Mountain Aire Veterinary Hospital. To find out more please call (661) 248-7387.

This is part of the July 27, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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