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Wow! However i have a quick question. Were they trying to steal the viper for personal ownership, bragging rights, or to sell it? And if they knew what a Gaboon viper is shouldn't they have known that those things have long fangs? And short fangs or not who in goodness name puts the snakebag on their shoulder!!!! Sheesh, that is like tempting fate.

I am amazed that they managed to save the person's life! Whoever organized the rescue must be one serious strategist ....even going as far as getting an airforce jet to fetch the antivenin! That is just amazing. He or she must have known what they were facing.

Some more questions. How come they found the antivenin in this case yet in the one surrounding the Ohio firefighter there was none in the nation? WAs it because in this case the person in charge of the rescue knew exactly what was going on and had connections? Anyways i'd say the use of the jet showed someone with great presence of mind.

Also were you there? And if you were i was wondering if you managed to snatch a peek at the 'victim's' wounds. The tissue damage must have been apocalyptic. I am surprised though that the person survived. Did the snake deliver a full bite or did it just graze him with a fang? The reason i ask is because Gaboons deliver prodigious quantities of highly potent venom, hence a bite on the back should have been quite serious.

Whatever the case dude was lucky. Almost too lucky. If i were him i would purchase a lotto ticket.

Talking about snake stories:

The deadliest snake is one with a gun
By Paul Sieveking

A CHINESE hunter trying to catch a snake was fatally shot by the irate serpent last June. The man named Li and his brother came across the snake while returning from a hunting trip on a mountain near Li Bian village in Huang Jin county, Shanxi province.

Li, attempting to add the snake to his hunting bag, placed the butt of the gun on its head. The snake then coiled itself round the gun and lashed the trigger with its tail. Li was shot in the buttocks and died on the way to hospital.

A similar accident took place in Iran six years earlier. Ali-Ashgar Ahani, 27, tried to catch a snake alive near Teheran in April 1990 by pressing the butt of his shotgun behind its head. The snake coiled around the butt and pulled the trigger with its thrashing tail, firing one of the barrels and shooting Ahani fatally in the head. His companion tried to grab the shotgun, but the writhing reptile triggered the other barrel.

http://www.arachnophiliac.com/burrow/news/the_deadliest_snake.htm

I was in Knoxville and the kid was in Washington D.C. This was before the zoo's made it mandatory that if one had a poisonous snake, the zoo must have antivenin on hand. The kids were stealing the snakes and had no idea they had stolen a Gaboon Viper. The person that called the University of Tennessee that night knew that The University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine had close ties to the Knoxville Zoo and was making a WAG as to if we had some antivenin. UTK and the Knoxville Zoo had some forethought about the poisonous snake/antivenin necessary if one were to display nasty ones. I will never ever again volunteer to take care of a mamba unless it is dead and going to necropsy. You see, the only way we got to treat these snakes is if they were sick and if they were, we had to handle them daily. Mouthrot in a poisonous snake is a real pain in the ass.

Now Knoxville has been through a case similar to this but with botulinum. A family got Botulism Type E toxicity from eating fish from a Knoxville grocery store. The UT Memorial Hospital isolated the toxin and identified it but the US has no Type E antitoxin because type E is indigenous to Europe and Africa. The USAF sent an F-104 from Knoxville to France and retrieved antitoxin and flew it back in record time. Still, 2 out of 5 died.