Carson City boy hospitalized after bite from baby rattlesnake
A Carson City mother is urging parents to talk to their children about identifying rattlesnakes and warning them not to pick them up after her son was hospitalized Saturday due to a bite from a baby rattler.
Terri Zittel said her 13-year-old son, Troy Winkler, was hiking with his father in the Prison Hill area at around 3:30 p.m. when he picked up the baby rattler to show to his father. Troy tripped and fell with the snake biting him in the left hand.
Troy’s father immediately saw it was a rattler, grabbed the small snake, put it in a container and rushed his son to the hospital.
The boy, who attends Eagle Valley Middle School, was treated at Carson Tahoe Hospital and then moved to the children’s ICU Ward at Renown Medical Center in Reno where he is expected to be released sometime Sunday.
At the hospital, his hand began to swell and he was given an anti-venom treatment, Zittel said. She was told by nurses at CTH that her son was the second person brought in this year to have been bitten by a rattler.
“He was in good care at both hospitals,” she said. “The nurses were excellent, supportive and very helpful.”
The baby rattlesnake was around 4 inches in size, she said. Zittel was told at the hospital that the baby rattlers tend to carry longer bites than adults, and therefore their bites can be more dangerous than adult rattlers. Go here for information about baby rattlesnakes.
Troy said knew right away he had been bitten. He said he did not think he was picking up a rattlesnake but a lizard.
“It was painful for five seconds, then it didn’t feel bad for a minute and then it began hurting really bad,” he said.
He also said he would brush up on his knowledge of snakes that live in the Carson City and western Nevada area.
“I don’t want to get bit again. It hurt really bad,” he said.
Zittel said it’s important that children learn the markings of snakes and urged parents to talk to them about safety, and not picking up snakes or other wildlife.