As wild habitats get compressed/fragmented by urbanisation, certain species manage to adapt to the structural changes to their habitats. Encounters between serpents and humans tend to take on novel and diverse forms. Three snake incidents from last week highlight the mutual hazards. We start with a needless death, one so freakish and bizarre that it reinforces philosophical thought that human life is more riddled with absurdities/chance than divine design. Last Monday, a notorious “bed bug” set upon Maya Thapa (40), an educated, hardworking, mother of three with a feisty presence on social media. This bug’s bites do not cause sores but have killed scores of sleeping people. It is nearly “invisible” due to an incredible knack for hiding in a house’s nooks, crannies and cracks during the day.
Maya, who ran a fast foods joint in a Mukerian village (Punjab), was bitten by a common krait, the infamous ‘midnight killer’ — not when sleeping on the floor (as is the standard with krait bites) but on the bed where the krait had climbed. So perilous is the presence of kraits in the house — akin to murderers plunging knives into slumbering chests and heaving breasts — that a human being is not safe even in her/his bed.
About 3.30 am, Maya went to the washroom. As chance would have it, upon return she sat on a different bed where clothes were strewn around. She was bitten by a snake hiding in the clothes on her lower back. The snake stuck to her and would not let go. Showing great presence of mind, Maya wrenched off the snake. She recognised the species as she had seen specimens around her rented accommodation earlier. Maya woke up her husband from their bedroom and told him: “I have been bitten by a krait, take me to the hospital immediately or I will die,” her brother-in-law Ramesh Sharma told this writer.
{{/usCountry}}About 3.30 am, Maya went to the washroom. As chance would have it, upon return she sat on a different bed where clothes were strewn around. She was bitten by a snake hiding in the clothes on her lower back. The snake stuck to her and would not let go. Showing great presence of mind, Maya wrenched off the snake. She recognised the species as she had seen specimens around her rented accommodation earlier. Maya woke up her husband from their bedroom and told him: “I have been bitten by a krait, take me to the hospital immediately or I will die,” her brother-in-law Ramesh Sharma told this writer.
{{/usCountry}}Sharma, who lives in the same village, has killed two kraits in his accommodation. In an ongoing national survey on snake-bite mitigation in three Punjab districts under the aegis of the ICMR, researchers found that kraits monopolised deep night bites, leading to fatalities whenever appropriate treatment was not administered.
“Maya was rushed to a private hospital. Initially, she did not show symptoms but soon suffered stomach/chest pains, facial burning accompanied by mouth frothing and acute breathing difficulty afflicted her. Despite her deteriorating condition, she confirmed the snake that bit her as a krait from a photograph of another krait that the doctor showed her. However, the treatment was inappropriate and our pleas for priority attention fell on deaf ears. We were asked to take her to another hospital after we had spent ₹25,000. By this time, Maya’s condition deteriorated, and she gasped her last words within an hour of the bite: “I know I am going to die, I have not been given treatment. Please accord me the last rites due under my religion.” Her husband has left for Nepal to fulfil her last wishes. Her food shop is left locked, her accommodation, too, as it is haunted by the killer krait,” added Sharma.
On the other hand, timely medication saves lives, reaffirmed by a heartening statement from the Army’s Southern Command HQs last Sunday: “White Tiger Healers responded promptly and saved a precious life of a civilian bitten by a venomous snake (saw-scaled viper) at Chelak, Jaisalmer. Individual immediately stabilised on getting anti-snake venom and life-saving drugs.”
And finally, a proverbial ‘believe it or not’ incident from South Delhi’s posh Chittranjan Park area. A resident glimpsed a huge rock python in his car! He summoned a Rapid Response Unit from the NGO, Wildlife SOS, which extricated the python. It had fled a bustling humanity by stowing away under the bonnet!