Snake Bites First Grader At School

[DaylilyDawn]

Earlier today at Clark Elementary school over in Tampa, a pygmy rattlesnake bit a 6 year old first grader when the boy touched the snake. The children were out on the playground standing in line when the snake slithered up behind them. The teacher told the children to leave the snake alone but the boy reached down and touched him and that is when the snake bit him. He is listed in fair condition at the hospital where he was rushed to after the bite.

[weatherwunder]

Hopefully he wil recover fully. It is hard to get youngsters to listen and understand the dangers of things like this.

[DaylilyDawn]

Yes it is. That is why I taught my children never to touch a snake when they were small. My 2 yearold son at the time came to get me saying nake. I went to check on what he wanted to show me, there was a pygmy rattle snake about 1 ft behind my husband's foot where he was working on the car. They had learned about the snakes at the peditrician's office when they went to see him. The room we would be put in had a chart of all the posionous snakes on the wall and I told my children , do not ever pick up or touch one of these. Come get Mommy or Daddy to take care of it.

[johnsam]

There are 6 snakes that are poisonous from Va south.

-Coral Snake
-Pygmy Rattler
-Eastern Diamondback Rattler
-Timber Rattler
-Copperhead
-Cotton Mouth

I do not know of any others! Just FYI.

[breeze]

The last four listed are prominent in my area, johnsam.
I look for those rascals when I hit the woods. The cottonmouths
are more common in creeks and rivers, which I tend to stay out
of, anyway!

[johnsam]

Breeze,

Same here. The most dangerous - in terms of fatality - is the Coral Snake, which is much rarer than the others.

The most aggressive is the cotton-mouth, which - like you said - likes water and wet places. I used to tangle a lot with cotton's when I was fishing in the Louisiana Bayou's. They would try to get the caught fish off the hooks on the fish holder dangling in the water.

Sam