VietNamNet Bridge – Hearing that her 10-month-old son was shouting, the mother held her head up and saw the boy pulling about with a viper, which was keeping the baby’s right forefinger on its mouth.



The baby is leaving Bach Mai hospital in the next
few days.



The incident occurred in late August. Ms. Lan’s home in Lang Giang district of Bac Giang province is close to the forest. That day, she put her baby into a baby carriage and bound the carriage to a tree, near a flower pot. The mother was busy with her housework when she heard the baby cry aloud. Lan held her head up and saw a viper that was big as a thumb which was keeping her baby’s right forefinger on its mouth.

“My son tried to use his left hand to pull the snake out but he failed. I rushed to strongly pull the snake from my son’s finger. My baby’s finger skin was torn after the pull. After that I tried to stop the bleeding and took him to Bac Giang hospital,” Lan recalled.

Doctors said that the baby suffered from blood clotting disorder because of the viper’s poison. The baby was on a drip feed of 150ml of blood and antibiotic but blood kept oozing from the bite. The baby was in serious anemia. He was sent to the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital.

Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung, head of the Pediatrics Ward of Bach Mai Hospital, said that the baby’s erythrocyte volume remained 2.4 million while the normal level must be 4.5 million. Bleeding could not stop because the blood clotting matter fell to 11 percent, when it must be 80 percent.

On the second day at Bach Mai Hospital, the blood clotting matter continued falling though the baby was dripped with an additional 250ml.

Dr. Dung said the baby was brought to the hospital late, the fifth day after being bitten by a viper, anti-viper poison serum does not work. The last “weapon” is frozen plasma. After two transfusions of plasma, antibiotics, etc., the baby began getting better.

“Viper’s poison is not as toxic as krait or cobra’s poison because it does not cause immediate respiratory failure. Its toxin mainly makes blood from clotting and bleeding. It is lucky that there was not bleeding in brain, heart or lungs of the baby,” Dr. Dung said.

The baby is recovering. He is leaving the hospital in several days.

Compiled by Nam Nguyen