Strike of the Tiger

Of all the world's land snakes, the Australian tiger snake is rated as about the most deadly. It needs to inject only 2 mg. of venom to kill a man, whereas the notorious hooded cobra must inject about 20 mg., and a big rattlesnake as much as 140 mg. Fortnight ago, Kenneth Earnest, 22, who helps run his family's reptile farm in Buena Park, 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, had a run-in with a greenish-grey and black-banded tiger snake. He almost lost.

Ken was feeding white mice to the snakes, had presented dinner to an African spitting cobra, a green mamba and two Indian cobras. In the fourth cage were two tiger snakes. They had to be separated to prevent a fight to the death over food. With his "hook," a sawed-off golf club with a fork at the end, Ken tried to catch the smaller snake. It slithered away, and for a moment he overlooked its 3-ft. cage mate, coiled by the door on Ken's blind side (he lost the sight of his right eye as a child in an accident with a rubber band). In that same second the snake bit Ken on his right hand.

Though he applied rapid first aid (tourniquet, a suction cup to draw out the venom), he developed a savage headache within minutes. His parents rushed him to Katella Hospital in nearby Stanton. As the evening wore on, Ken's mouth tightened up. He had difficulty talking, then in swallowing, finally in breathing. Through the night, doctors gave him small doses of cobra antivenin.-

Next morning Neurologist Findlay E.

Russell, one of the world's top authorities on snakebite, took over and transferred Ken to Los Angeles County Hospital. Fortunately, the San Diego zoo had some tiger-snake antivenin, and Dr. Russell got it fast. Even then, massive doses could not immediately halt the venom's attack on Ken's nervous system. His throat was cut open to pass a tube down his windpipe. Soon he was in an iron lung. The venom attacked the blood. Ken had to have five transfusions, plus injections of clotting drugs to control internal bleeding.

After five doctors and a brigade of nurses and other aides had hovered over him continuously for ten days, Ken Earnest could talk understandably and move his eyes slightly, though the lids were still paralyzed. He was spending an hour a day out of the iron lung. This week Dr. Russell gave him a 75% chance of full recovery.

-Because cobra venom is chemically akin to the tiger snake's.

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