Why it pays to know your venomous snake species in Hong Kong – a snake bite victim explains
- Hong Kong has more than 50 snake species, and eight of the land-dwelling ones have bites that can be life-threatening
- Being able to identify the snake helped with Steve Pheby’s treatment when he was bitten by a bamboo pit viper; six days later he ran a half-marathon
Steve Pheby was walking his dog in Sai Kung in Hong Kong’s New Territories last September when he was bitten by a bamboo pit viper, Hong Kong’s most common venomous snake.
“It was late at night and I’d just got home from a long-haul flight from London and changed into shorts and flip-flops,” says British-born Pheby. “I was with my dog just a few metres from my house and it all happened so quickly. At first it felt like a tiny scratch, but later it felt like someone was drilling into my foot,” he says. Upon reflection, he regretted his choice of footwear.
“I saw the snake slither away and looked down and saw a couple of pricks of blood. I walked home and dialled 999 [for the emergency services]. Twenty minutes later the ambulance, police and fire brigade had arrived. There was no pain for the first 20 minutes – then it kicked in.”
Pheby, a fan of the Hong Kong Snakes Facebook page, found it easier to visually identify the snake than to attempt to photograph it. He knew what species it was from its bright green colour and red markings on its tail, a vital detail that distinguished it from the non-venomous greater green snake for which bamboo pit vipers are often mistaken. Knowing this meant he was able to properly brief doctors so he was administered the correct antivenom.
“What I discovered through the Facebook group is that treatment of snake bites varies according to the species, and just like there are different kinds of snakes, there are also different kinds of venom, such as neurotoxins [chemical substances that are poisonous to the nervous system] and haemotoxins that disrupt normal blood coagulation.
