Snakebite jolts New Tampa family

It's unusual for water moccasins to be out this time of year, but it's been warm, so watch out.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 11, 2007

Maria Hoffman stands over her son Jake, 7, in the University Community Hospital's pediatric intensive care unit.
	[Ross Mantle | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Ross Mantle | Times] Times and markings track the venom as it rises up Jake Hoffman's leg. The 7-year-old was bitten on the foot by a water moccasin while playing with friends near his home in the Kingshyre subdivision in New Tampa. Jake was not wearing shoes. His parents, John and Maria Hoffman, suggest that children should always wear their shoes while outside.

NEW TAMPA - Seven-year-old Jake Hoffman ran through his neighbor's back yard at a Sunday afternoon birthday party with three friends, barefoot and carefree. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his left foot. The first-grader ran inside, screaming to his mother that a plant had scratched him.

Maria Hoffman saw drops of blood on top of his foot and thought no plant could cause such an odd-looking wound.

One of the fathers at the party ran outside and saw a black snake as thick as his arm slither away.

A water moccasin, he guessed.

"Am I going to die?" Jake cried hysterically, his foot beginning to swell, the pain intensifying.

Twenty-four hours later, doctors happily said Jake is expected to make a full recovery from his snakebite, though he and his parents will never forget the ordeal they recounted Monday.

After someone called 911, paramedics arrived and at 3:50 p.m. Sunday, marked the bite with pen and took Jake and his dad, John, to University Community Hospital, 10 miles from their Kingshyre home. John Hoffman remembers feeling light-headed in the ambulance.

"You don't know exactly what a snakebite will do," John Hoffman said. "You don't think it's ever going to happen to you, so you don't do any research."

About an hour after he was bitten, Jake was given the first of what would be 12 vials of antivenin serum to neutralize the venom.

As his parents talked Monday from Jake's room in the intensive care unit at UCH, Jake, a Little League baseball player who likes to talk and play video games, was scared, nervous and upset. He clutched his stuffed bulldog, "Ruff Ruff" and cried so hard, he told nurses he wanted to throw up. His left leg, propped up on a pillow, had ink marks indicating the points where the venom had moved up his leg, and the time it was recorded.

The Hoffmans, both Realtors, wanted to warn other parents to make sure their kids wear shoes while outdoors.

"Even I go barefoot," Maria Hoffman said, "but never again. I put it up there with wearing helmets now."

The physician treating Jake, Mariano Fiallos, said UCH treats about five venomous snake bites annually but usually not this time of the year.

Typically by this month water moccasins should be "tucked away, keeping warm somewhere," said Dan Costell, a snake expert at Lowry Park Zoo. But the unseasonably warm weather means they'll come out of hiding.

"They're going to be out basking and living life as if it's summer," he said. "They're going to be roaming around."

Costell said water moccasins rank "pretty low" on the poison scale.

"Anybody should live through it as long as you get medical attention right away," he said. "You don't walk three steps and die."

He estimated that, on average, children would have about an hour to get medical treatment.

For the Hoffmans, perhaps not knowing about that hour kept them from breaking down.

"You're just in shock," Maria Hoffman said. "It's scary."

To learn more

Dr. Vincent Speranza, the pharmacist handling Jake's case, said in addition to 911, the Poison Control Center is able to answer questions about snake bites. That number is 1-800-222-1222.

[Last modified December 10, 2007, 22:31:06]