Garden snakes can be very dangerous

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GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS...

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.

About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.

The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now, the police had arrived.

Breathe here...

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

And that's when he shot her. :D

John
 
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Whew! I'm plumb wore out from reading that. I know that there can be potential danger in most anything in a really freaky situation. If I remember the story right Mama Cass Elliiot of the Mamas and the Papas choked to death on a ham sandwich?

But the OP brought back a startling childhood memory. Here is an excerpt from the account of that unfortunate event.

***********************************************************

NEVER TAKE YOUR SNAKES ON A FAMILY VACATION

You know those little green grass snakes that you see
in the spring and early summer. They are really neat
and I used to play with them all the time when I was a
kid. They eat flies and other bugs and are about as
dangerous as a butterfly. I used to pass many a happy
hour hunting them up and playing with them and then
turning them loose.

One summer when I was 8 years old, I went on summer
vacation with my parents. We went out to West Texas
near the area of Judge Roy Bean's Law West of the
Pecos. I knew it was gonna be a long boring trip so I
decided to take a couple of my slithery little green
pals with me to keep me company. I got a cigar box and
put some fresh grass in it and put in the two grass
snakes, along with a few dead flies that I had swatted
myself that very same morning. It pleased my sense of
propriety that the snakes be a boy and a girl so I
named them Srtikey and Strikietta, respectively...Hey
I was only 8!

Well, I had all my stuff ready to go and my dad was
checking out the car and my mom was packing and
unpacking and repacking and trying to decide how she
wanted to dress for the trip. Looked to me like I had
some time on my hands so I slipped down to the bayou
at the edge of the neighbor hood. I got down in the
bottom and was happy to discover that there was a
stream of water about 6 or 7 inches deep and maybe a
foot wide running at a pretty good clip. I got to
pokin' around in the cat-tails and to my great good
fortune I encountered a rather large soft shell
turtle. I got it up to the top and put it into the
basket on my bicycle and hurried home as fast as I
could. My dad saw me ride up and he saw the turtle. He
wanted to know why I brought it home. I told him that
when we got back I was gonna make a pet out of it. He
said I could put it in a wash tub and he laid a piece
of window screen over it and a 2X4 on top of that. I
put some old lettuce and bread and stuff in there and
figured he be fine while we were gone.

By that time my mom was ready and I gave the turtle
not another thought.

When we got into the car to leave home for our
vacation, I surreptitiously slipped the cigar box,
grass, snakes, flies and all, into the back seat of
the car with out my parents being any the wiser. I
spent the first couple of hours of the trip
entertaining myself in the usual ways a young boy will
when on a long boring car trip: eating, coloring, and
irritating the devil our of my parents. "How long till
we get there?", "How many more turns". "I gotta pee."
I was saving the snakes for when I was desperate and
had nothing else to do.

When I had waited what I felt was a respectable length
of time,(I had been warned by my dad to sit back and
be quiet. We wouldn't be there for hours yet, I didn't
need anything else to eat, he didn't know how many
more turns and I could pee when we stopped for gas,
like every body else!) Further conversation was not
encouraged.

Taking the hint, and knowing I was left to my own
devices, I went to check on my snakes. The box was empty.
Emmmmp-ty! Just some grass, 2 of the flies, and that
was all. I tried to be as discrete as possible,
looking on the floor, under the front seats, etc.
Finally old Hawk-eye (we just called her MOM )
noticed me squirming around and looked over the back
of the front seat and wanted to know what I thought I
was doing. My answer lacked diplomacy, among other
things. I think I said something like, "why, I'm
lookin' for my snakes...you ain't seen 'em up in the
front, have ya?"

With the exception of a blow out, I can't ever
remember my dad getting into the break-down lane and
coming to a complete stop in less time or distance.
Mom was literally on the ceiling of the car. I never
new that the human voice could attain such a high note
and hold it so long, either. It was one of those
noises that you know you must escape immediately,
regardless of the cost or consequences, or suffer
permanent hearing loss and brain damage. It was my
first experience with such a noise and I was in a
total panic.

We never found the snakes. I suppose that when all the
hollering started they experienced a complete and
forever shattering of the nervous system and as soon
as a door was opened (three of the four doors were
open, by the way) Dad made his escape from the drivers
door, Mom went out the passenger door, after getting
back down off the ceiling, and I dove head first from
the right rear. I expected my ears to start bleeding
any second.) the snakes probably slipped quietly out
and away some place nice and quiet to die of sonic
shock.

We eventually resumed the trip but conversation was
tedious the rest of the day and I was admonished to
leave the critters at home in the future.

The turtle? When we got home it was pretty late at
night and I was asleep in the back seat. Mom got out
to hoist up the garage door and when she did the smell
of that turtle, several days dead, nearly knocked her
back down the driveway all the way to the street.

When Mom was done shaking me awake I got a good grip
on my nose and went into the garage, turned on the
light and looked in the wash tub. There was that old
turtle, dead and really ripe. also in the tub were 4
fairly good sized oblong eggs. I was advised that
sometimes it's best not to interfere with Mother
Nature. I was also cautioned not to collect animals to
keep the day before embarking on a 2 week vacation.
Good advice, all.
 
This isn't as funny as some think. I've read that at least some garter snakes are rear-fanged, like a boomslang, although not as toxic. But if they can open the mouth wide enough to bite finger or toes, they can deliver a dangerous bite.


Maybe patvince or Bear Bio will see this and comment further.
I want more details.
 
GARDEN SNAKES CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS...

Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started carrying him out.

About that time, the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch.. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa.

The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now, the police had arrived.

Breathe here...

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little garden snake!

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

Now, the little snake again crawled out from under the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and called in the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires, put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed! Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

And that's when he shot her. :D

John


I always hate it when that happens!;)
 
This isn't as funny as some think. I've read that at least some garter snakes are rear-fanged, like a boomslang, although not as toxic. But if they can open the mouth wide enough to bite finger or toes, they can deliver a dangerous bite.


Maybe patvince or Bear Bio will see this and comment further.
I want more details.
Real US garter snakes "thamnophis sp." are not rear fanged, some of the subspecies can develop enlarged rear fang(opistodont), but not grooved as real opistogliphous snakes.( all the psammophiid snakes, boiga sp., thelotornis sp. and the famous (infamous ?) boomslang...) However some garter snakes have a toxic saliva (maybe derived from their preys, toads., like heterodon.sp...)and a human reaction to a bite is very variable, from nothing (sightly swollen bite site) to light envenimation, but always treated symptomatically...
R.
 
What is really cool about garter snakes is that they have lots of live babies. A fact that my mother failed to see think was as amazing as I thought it was. But, then she didn't like bull snakes as much as I did either. Did you know that mothers will trade bull snakes for a puppy? Worked for me.
 
Beat me to it!


Meet my little blackberry bush guarding friend:
jmoorestuff016-1.jpg


jmoorestuff018.jpg


Dangerous indeed.
 
We found this gopher snake in our back yard a few years ago. He measured over 5 feet long:

SNAKE3_zpse4671d60.jpg


This is my wife holding him. She's not squeamish about most non-venomous snakes at all.

SNAKE1_zps1f2b9384.jpg


We put him in a pillow case and took him out to the desert and let him loose. On the way, we annoyed a lot of rattlers who signaled us that they were not happy smelling a gopher snake, which can actually do battle with a rattler and win.

John
 
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Real US garter snakes "thamnophis sp." are not rear fanged, some of the subspecies can develop enlarged rear fang(opistodont), but not grooved as real opistogliphous snakes.( all the psammophiid snakes, boiga sp., thelotornis sp. and the famous (infamous ?) boomslang...) However some garter snakes have a toxic saliva (maybe derived from their preys, toads., like heterodon.sp...)and a human reaction to a bite is very variable, from nothing (sightly swollen bite site) to light envenimation, but always treated symptomatically...
R.



For those who don't know genera of snakes well, the Thelotornis referenced here is the African bird snake and it, like the Boomslang (Dispholidus typus), is exceedingly venomous.


In Dutch-derived Afrikaans, "boom slang" means, tree snake.


To give you an idea of its toxicity, a typical cobra or mamba needs to deliver 15-20 mg. of venom to kill a 150 lb. male human in good condition. A Boomslang bite needs about 1.5 mg. of venom!


A Boomslang killed the prominent herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt in 1957 and people began looking closer at that species and realized how dangerous it is.


The easy way to distinguish a Boomslang from a green mamba is that the mamba has a shorter, slightly rounder head. But it's best to do this observation with a binocular as the snake moves in a tree. DO NOT do a "Steve Irwin" and chase the snake.


Without looking it up, I think Boiga is the Mangrove Snake of SE Asia?

Thanks to patvince, our snake pro here, for his post about garter snakes and their sometimes toxicity. His explanation is the best I've seen.
 
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There is no such thing as a nonvenomous snake. There are snakes that do no have fangs that enable direct injection of the critters specific poison.

Garter snakes were the first to be found to secrete the same poison as Copperhead/Rattlers. If they bite on in a sthin part, like the skin between your fingers and chew long enough to break the skin poison is secreted out between the snakes teeth and gums.

It is a small amount but some react just like a Rattlesnake bite.

Tests ran after a garter snake bit a boy and did the above. His blood had the same antibodies as Rattlesnake poison.

Now you have another reason to not play with snakes.
 
There is no such thing as a nonvenomous snake. There are snakes that do no have fangs that enable direct injection of the critters specific poison.

Garter snakes were the first to be found to secrete the same poison as Copperhead/Rattlers. If they bite on in a sthin part, like the skin between your fingers and chew long enough to break the skin poison is secreted out between the snakes teeth and gums.

It is a small amount but some react just like a Rattlesnake bite.

Tests ran after a garter snake bit a boy and did the above. His blood had the same antibodies as Rattlesnake poison.

Now you have another reason to not play with snakes.
You are right.....Recent study demonstrated that most non venomous snakes (true colubrid) do have a toxic saliva (as monitor lizards), but with no related specialised teeth (fang) as do have opistogliphous,proteroglyphous and solenogliphous snakes...that said they do have enough time and enough of a gape, to chew and give a full bite to mixe the saliva with blood, like you said it well. Fortunately most people have no reaction at all to those bites...Even to some midly venomous opistogliphous bites from psammophid snakes(all rear fanged) I have personally be bitten a number of time by non venomous snakes and some mild venomous opisto.(full bites), with no symptom at all. On the other hands, bites from monitor lizards (small one, genus odatria, a big one will send you to hospital for surgery...) make you bleeding for a long time and the scar can be visible for month (personal experience)...SO, be prudent when handling harmless snakes..always wash a bite with water and soap.....and let them quite and don't kill them (as venomous one...).
 
You are right.....Recent study demonstrated that most non venomous snakes (true colubrid) do have a toxic saliva (as monitor lizards), but with no related specialised teeth (fang) as do have opistogliphous,proteroglyphous and solenogliphous snakes...that said they do have enough time and enough of a gape, to chew and give a full bite to mixe the saliva with blood, like you said it well. Fortunately most people have no reaction at all to those bites...Even to some midly venomous opistogliphous bites from psammophid snakes(all rear fanged) I have personally be bitten a number of time by non venomous snakes and some mild venomous opisto.(full bites), with no symptom at all. On the other hands, bites from monitor lizards (small one, genus odatria, a big one will send you to hospital for surgery...) make you bleeding for a long time and the scar can be visible for month (personal experience)...SO, be prudent when handling harmless snakes..always wash a bite with water and soap.....and let them quite and don't kill them (as venomous one...).
Pat-


Offcially, only two lizards are venomous, with fangs and poison: the Gila Monster and the related Mexican beaded lizard.


But I understand that bites by the Komodo dragon contain a toxic saliva and toxins/pathogens from rottng meat in the animal's mouth. Infection is likely, if the victim can even escape the attack.


It stands to reason that other large varanid monitors like the Crocdile lizard or the Nile Monitor would have a similar effect.
With that in mind, snakes may well pose a similar problem.
 
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