The pain is unbearable. He does not much feel like talking, but Darian Baehler knows he is lucky to have his left foot. A rattlesnake bit his leg not once, but twice. He has had two surgeries, so far, to relieve pressure from the swelling. He was moved from intensive care to intermediate care at University Medical Center Brackenridge Tuesday afternoon.

Darian’s father, Todd Baehler, said, “It’s just unbelievable. I could not believe a snake bite could do this much damage. He’s going to be in the hospital another week or so. He’s going to have physical therapy, he’s going to have plastic surgery, he’s going to have a lot of problems.”

It happened Friday, when Baehler and a group of kids were headed home down a wooded path near Southwest Regional Park in Williamson County. His sister Nicole says it got dark all of the sudden. One of their friends unknowingly stepped over a rattlesnake. Soon they all knew.

“It was really loud,” Nicole Baehler said. “Like, you know, like moraccas or whatever, that’s what it sounded like.

Game warden Turk Jones says dusk and dark in the summer are prime time for snakes.

“They’re gonna be out in the evening, 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, the time those kids were walking through here,” Jones said.

Six-year-old Carson Perreault was also in the group. “I wouldn’t have survived it,” Perrault said

Doctors agree, which strikes a chord with Todd Baehler.

“That was scary to me because people walk their dogs back there. People ride their bikes back there,” Baehler said.

Doctors at UMC Brackenridge say they see 40-50 snake bites a year, mostly during the summer months. They say rattlesnake anti-venom runs about $2,000 a vial. Baehler had to have 33 vials. Doctors say that the anti-venom can mean the difference between keeping and losing a limb, and in some cases, life and death. That is why they say anyone who is the victim of a snake bite, no matter how minor, should seek emergency medical treatment.

via Teenager fighting to keep his foot after rattlesnake bites | kvue.com | KVUE News | Austin, TX | Breaking News.

A Sneads man is in critical condition after being bitten four times by an Eastern diamondback rattlesnake Sunday outside his home on River Road.

Frank Shelfer was in the critical care unit at Southeast Alabama Medical Center as of Tuesday.

His mother, Minnie Lee Shelfer, said he was bitten just after he walked outside to get his first breath of fresh air after gall stone surgery last Friday.

“He had picked up a limb and went over to put in on a pile of other limbs outside, and he said he was bitten when he took a step to lay it on the pile,” Mrs. Shelfer said.

He doesn’t have much sensation in his left leg, due to an old injury, and he didn’t know he’d been bitten until he looked down, his mother said.  According to Jackson County Fire Rescue Chief Tony Wesley, the four bites were to Shelfer’s left foot and ankle. Shelfer’s mother said she thinks she remembers her son saying he saw the snake’s fangs sliding off his shoe as the reptile departed.

Once he realized he was bitten, he did what he could to keep the poison from spreading through his body as he went for help.

“He hopped on one foot to the door of the house and called out to his wife (Lynne),”  his mother said

He was flown to Southeast. From the ambulance that took him to the helicopter, his wife called the church, where his mother was attending services, and let her know about the bite.

His mother said the church members been praying for her son ever since.

He is being treated with anti-venom, his mother said, and as of Tuesday was still unable to move about. But he was able to talk with friends and family.

It is not known what prompted the bite. Herpetology expert Paul Moler said it’s possible that Shelfer, not seeing the snake, may have stepped on it.

Until his retirement, Moler led the herpetology research section for the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Conservation Commission in Gainesville. He still volunteers for the section and for other departments at the agency.

He said the best defense against snakebite is being watchful and careful.

The Eastern diamondback can be found anywhere in its home region — from southern North Carolina to Florida, and west to Louisiana, according to National Geographic. It prefers open fields with plenty of seeds for its typical prey, like rabbits, rats and squirrels.

They don’t usually like heavily wooded areas with lots of canopy, Moler said, because there’s less seed there to attract the prey. Still, he’s seen them there, too.

“Just be aware of your surroundings,” Moler said. “Watch where you put your feet and hands. The snakes don’t really want to run into you at all. But when they’re feeling attacked, they’re going to do what they can to defend themselves. Frequently, their bites are dry bites, where they don’t even inject any venom. They’re basically trying to say, ‘Don’t tread on me.’  The other thing you can do is wear boots that protect the ankles in high grass, but the most important thing is to watch where you’re going. Keep your eyes glued to the ground.”

Moler said there are many myths that don’t hold up when it comes to avoiding snakes. For instance, wearing bells on one’s shoelaces won’t probably have any effect.

“Snakes are essentially deaf, but they feel vibrations and they probably know you’re there anyway,” Moler said. “But if they feel like they’re hidden and safe, it is rare for them to bite. It’s only when they feel threatened that you have to worry.”

If bitten, he said “the best first aid is your car keys” when in a remote area with no one close by to call for help. Minimize movement, but drive to a medical facility as quickly as possible.

The field remedies once regularly recommended — like tourniquets and cuts in the skin to suck out the venom — can be almost as dangerous as the bite itself and leave the victim maimed for life, Moler said.

via wmbb.com – Sneads Man in Critical Condition From Snake Bites.

A 4-year-old boy was critically injured in a dog attack inside a house where he was staying overnight in Kansas City.

The boy’s mother was staying at the house in the 3500 block of Terrace Street to clean it and she brought her son.

She told police she was sleeping about 2:30 a.m. when the sound of dogs barking inside the home woke her up. She went to see what was causing the barking and found two large Rottweiler dogs surrounding her son. At least one dog was biting her son. She pushed the dogs away and forced them outside. She then picked up her son, who had suffered bite marks over his entire body, and ran to a neighbor’s house, where she called 911.

An ambulance took the boy to a hospital, where he was listed in critical, but stable condition. A doctor told police it was the worst animal attack injuries he had ever seen.

Police were still investigating what caused the dogs to maul the boy. Police could not reach animal control officers in Kansas City so animal control officers from North Kansas City took the dogs away.

via 4-year-old critically hurt in dog attack – KansasCity.com.

Additional information is being released in connection with a fatal bear attack which happened near Yellowstone Park on Wednesday morning.

State wildlife officials say that two people were injured and one person was killed in separate bear attacks that occurred at the Soda Butte Campground.

Park County Sheriff’s Department dispatch records show that a Park County Sheriff’s deputy and a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks game warden were dispatched to the area at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and Investigators found a man dead at the campground about two hours later.

Two other people, a male and a female, were reportedly bitten and later treated at a hospital in Cody, Wyoming. The identities of the victims have not been released.

FWP officials, in cooperation with the Gallatin National Forest, the National Park Service and the Park County Sherriff’s Office spent much of the day at the site collecting forensic evidence of the attacks.

Officials from the agencies plan to hold a community meeting at the Cooke City Chamber of Commerce on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the incident.

“The camp sites are being combed for evidence,” said FWP spokesman Ron Aasheim “We’re not certain if it was one bear or more than one, and we haven’t determined if it was a grizzly or black bear. We’ve extracted DNA samples from evidence found on site. This will help us identify the bear or bears involved, once captured.”

Officials say that tents were ripped or damaged during the attacks but no food was found in the tent of the dead man or in the tents of the two injured victims. “Everyone appeared to have followed all food storage regulations,” Aasheim said.

The Soda Butte Campground, the nearby Chief Joseph and Colter campgrounds, also in the Gallatin National Forest, are closed.

“This is not typical bear behavior. It’s odd. It’s not normal,” Aasheim said.

FWP officials have set a number of traps in anticipation of the animal’s return on Wednesday night.

via KPAX – Missoula, Montana – News, Weather, Sports – - KPAX Home Missoula News, Missoula Weather, Missoula Sports, Montana News, Montana Weather, Montana Sports | Separate bear attacks blamed for fatality, injuries.

A 12-year-old girl died Tuesday after falling into floodwaters near Flagstaff, Arizona, authorities said.

Shaelyn Wilson had gone to see runoff from a flash flood around 2 p.m., according to the Coconino Sheriff’s Department. A younger sister ran back to tell the father that Shaelyn had fallen into a wash.

The family searched the area near where the girl fell and several agencies also took part in the search, according to Kelli Most, administrative specialist with the sheriff’s department.

The girl was found about a third of a mile from where she went into the water, and her father performed CPR until paramedics arrived. She was pronounced dead at Flagstaff Medical Center.

A massive wildfire last month made the area susceptible to flooding, said Most. “There’s just no greenery there” to prevent runoff, she said. The blaze charred 15,000 acres.

Several small streams pushed over their banks, and flash floods were threatening homes, according to CNN affiliate KPHO.

via Arizona girl, 12, dies in flooding – CNN.com.

Depending on where you are in the Rockies this year, the annual summer bear season could mean black-bear sightings in your front yard or a near-death experience while looking through the jaws of a hungry bear.

Already, the list of bear attacks across the Rockies this summer is beginning to mount.

On Saturday morning, a bear attacked a homeless man sleeping in Durango near the Animas River. The man survived, but the bear didn’t after Colorado Division of Wildlife officials turned their guns on it after the attack. A necropsy of the bear’s carcass was completed at CSU.

Last Thursday, a bear broke into a home in Bailey, southwest of Denver, biting a man.

Other bears have been sighted plundering porches and backyards in Livermore and Rist Canyon.

In the past month, bears have turned outright hostile in New Mexico, where they’ve developed an affinity for tents and a taste for the people sleeping in them.

“They’re coming down and acting kind of aggressive right now,” said Dan Williams, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

New Mexico wildlife officials killed a bear at the end of June after it jumped on a tent and took a swipe at the man sleeping in it at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, a 137,000-acre camping and backpacking ranch just south of the Colorado state line west of Raton.

There were two more incidents there: The same day, another bear was found with a goat in its mouth, and a Philmont staffer killed it. On Wednesday, a bear bit a 14-year-old Boy Scout through his tent, leaving a deep gash in his head.

“It kind of peeled back the scalp there,” Williams said.

Both campers who were attacked were carefully following strict bear-safety protocols in place at Philmont, he said.

Those incidents followed another in June when a bear swatted a man tent-camping in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque.

But all the ursine nastiness in some parts of the West doesn’t mean there’s anything unusual going on this year, particularly in Colorado and Wyoming.

Bear activity is quite normal throughout Colorado, DOW spokesman Tyler Baskfield said.

The bears’ habitat is normal and healthy, he said, and there is no sign of increased bear sightings or attacks in any localized area, he said.

“We haven’t noticed anything that is different than we’ve seen in years when there’s decent, natural food,” said Ken Wilson, a professor of wildlife and conservation biology at Colorado State University.

“A bear has been into some trash cans in Rist Canyon,” he said. “One bear can decide it’s going to get into something, (but) it’s not all of them.”

Few bears have been seen at all in southern Wyoming, where wildlife officials consider black-bear habitat and natural food supply excellent, said Al Langston, spokesman for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.

In New Mexico, dry weather hurt the bears’ food supply and dried out the forbs and grass that usually get black bears through the spring.

The lack of food there is so dire that this year’s number of bear attacks hasn’t been seen in New Mexico for almost a decade, Williams said.

There are plenty of things homeowners and backcountry adventurers can do to keep bears away.

For people camping in the mountains, store food in bear-resistant containers away from your sleeping area, Wilson said.

The best way to keep plundering bears away from homes is to keep birdseed, trash and other potential food sources inside where bears can’t have easy access to them, Baskfield said.

“There’s no reason to feed birds this time of year” because natural bird food is plentiful, he said.

And, he warned city dwellers, just because you might live in Fort Collins doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your home bear resistant.

“We get bears who wander into Fort Collins on a regular basis,” he said.

via List of bear attacks this summer grows | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan.

(NECN: Kenneth Craig, Rindge, N.H.) – A mother and her nine-year-old son were struck by lightning Friday night while heading to their lakeside vacation home.

A bolt of lightning ripped through their campsite, creating a terrifying experience.

“It was scary,” Bonnie Mann said. “I couldn’t move my legs. I was paralyzed for a period of time.”

The two are lucky to be alive after being struck at the Rindge, N.H. Vacation home. It was an almost one-in-a-million chance that they were struck Friday night.

“It was a huge vibrating feeling,” Bonnie Mann said. “[It lasted] long enough to wonder when it was going to stop.”

She said they held each other as they waited for help. Simon asked his mother if they would make it out alive.

The mother and son, who were there with family vacationing from Switzerland, were taken to area hospitals and quickly released. They said all they have to show for their adventure are a few superficial burns and blisters. They are thankful for the way it ended — without serious damage.

The family has about a week left before they had back home. They said they will not be taking any chances with summer storms again.

via Woman struck by lightning, momentarily paralyzed.

Lincoln Park — A 5-year-old boy was found dead this morning in his home in the 1500 block of Empire, believed to have been mauled to death by a dog or dogs in the home.

Police Chief Thomas Karnes said the mother of Kyle Holland called police around 9:30 a.m. today when she found her son dead in an upstairs bedroom. The mother, Karnes said, told police she put her son to bed around 10:30-11 p.m. Sunday. He is believed to have been deceased for several hours before police arrived. Authorities described his wounds as “significant.”

“It was sometime during the night that this had taken place,” Karnes said. “It appears the child was attacked by an animal.”

Authorities took two dogs from the home — a 35-pound Labrador mix and the other, a 90-pound male dog described by the owner as a husky/German shepherd mix. The dogs belong to the live-in boyfriend of the boy’s mother.

“It’s been described as a wolf hybrid, but the owner denies that,” Karnes said.

Police have ruled the death a homicide. An autopsy will be performed Tuesday. Anyone with information is asked to call police at (313) 381-1800.

via Dog attack suspected in 5-year-old boy’s death | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

A 51-year-old Bailey man suffered bite wounds from a bear inside his home early Thursday morning.

The man discovered the bear in his basement and approached it in hopes of getting the animal to leave. The 320-pound, male bear was later shot and killed.

According to wildlife officers, the family heard sounds in their kitchen shortly after midnight on Thursday morning and quickly determined that a bear had entered the home. The man attempted to monitor the bear’s whereabouts and was bitten as the bear tried to get past him.

A Division of Wildlife officer, responding alongside deputies from the Park County Sheriff’s Office, located the bear outside the home and killed it.

“The instructions we give our wildlife officers are clear: Public safety is our first priority,” said Reid DeWalt, area wildlife manager. “Bears that enter homes are a threat to public safety. When we’re dealing with aggressive or habituated wildlife, people come first.”

The victim was taken to Swedish Medical Center in Littleton and released Thursday morning.

Most conflicts between people and bears involve some sort of food source. In this case, wildlife officers said there was an open door to a garage containing accessible trash and a refrigerator. In addition, officers reported that the door from the garage into the home appeared not to be latching correctly. Bears can smell food from miles away, be it birdseed, pet food, a greasy grill grate or accessible refuse. Bears that become habituated to people will seek out such food sources.

Most bears sighted in residential areas within bear habitat do not cause any damage. If a bear doesn’t find abundant food, it will move on. In most cases, bears avoid confrontations with people.

Aggressive bear attacks are rare, but encounters like the one in Bailey have increased as Colorado’s population grows. The bear population has not increased, but the number of people living, working and recreating in bear country has.

The Colorado Division of Wildlife recommends the following measures to avoid harmful wildlife interactions:

• If a wild animal enters your home, leave and call for help. Animals that feel cornered or threatened are a danger to humans and pets.

• Make your property safe by keeping garbage out of reach and smell of bears. Use bear-proof trash containers. Be sure garbage cans are emptied regularly. To reduce residual odor, periodically clean garbage cans with hot water and chlorine bleach, or by burning trash residue in metal cans. Store trash in a bear-proof enclosure. Contact the Division of Wildlife for designs.

• Lock all ground-level windows and doors. Bears are smart — when they learn that homes contain food, they may try to enter.

• If you have pets, do not store their food outside or feed them outside. Clean your grill of grease and store inside. Hang bird seed, suet and hummingbird feeders on a wire between trees instead of on your deck or porch. Bring all bird feeders in at night. Do not put fruit, melon rinds and other tasty items in mulch or compost piles.

via Bear injures man in Park County | SummitDaily.com.

NBC — A Colorado man was almost killed when a 320-pound bear snuck in to his house and attacked him. Jack Hansell has the photo to prove it.

In a small town like Bailey, big news tends to travel fast, especially when the story is as bizarre as Jack Hansell’s.

Around 10:30 Wednesday night, Jack’s son heard something moseying around in the kitchen. Then he saw it.

Jack says “so he starts yelling, ‘there’s a bear, there’s a bear in the house!’”

That bear made its way downstairs to the basement. Jack followed after him. Jack hoped he’d get a chance to open the basement door so the bear could run out. But he didn’t.

Jack says “he charged me. Bit me in the lower leg and scratched me in the other leg and then knocked me over.”

Jack had so much adrenaline rushing through him, he didn’t feel the bite at all. So he started whacking the bear with a bat.

The bear ran up the stairs and climbed up in to Jack’s loft.

At this point, police and members of the Division of Wildlife were already on their way.

Jack says “unfortunately the bear tried climbing out of an upper story window and then police and DOW had to take care of him at that point.”

Jack suffered a few injuries and the bear was put down. The Division of Wildlife and Jack say this incident could have been prevented.

Jack says “make sure the garage door is shut every night. I had forgot to shut it last night.”

via Jack Hansell survives bear attack in his Colorado home | ksdk.com | St. Louis, MO.