Snake encounter in the hospital

[The Snark]

A co-worker reminded me of this scenario.

A man was brought into the ER by ambulance. He was only semi conscious and unaware of his surroundings. In the course of prepping the patient the nurses were removing his clothes and out came a snake.

Maximum freak out went off. The ER was evacuated, animal control was called in. The other patients were removed from the ER and this man was observed from a doorway to the ER.

Animal control came in and searched for the snake and drew a blank. So a major search of the entire ER was undertaken. Still no snake. The entire hospital came down with a case of the jitters for several days afterwards. No snake was found.

Meanwhile as or right after the ER was evacuated one of the maintenance workers went through the ER, spotted the garter snake, collected it and went on his merry way without giving much thought to things. He just happened to mention to me a few days later about finding the snake. (Maintenance workers don't chat it up with the rest of the hospital staff as a rule.)

In turn I went to the ER supervisor and told her and she in turn told the rest of her staff. It was such a silly over reaction affair everyone was chagrined. Word finally reached the DoN who told administration who ended up having to cob together a slight BS story and even make a public announcement in the local newspaper to quell the gossip. Maintenance had deftly removed the reptile within a few minutes of it being discovered but neglected to mention it to anyone, not wanting to cause alarm.

 

[Duriana]

They freaked out over a garter snake? Seriously, people need to educate themselves on snakes. My neighbor once killed a garter just "because it's a snake"

 

[The Snark]

It was not properly identified when initially seen. One also needs to take into account hospital circumstances. Nobody is wearing a Herpitologist label. Who would be willing to state, 'Oh, that's just a garter snake and harmless' and who would and should accept such an identification? In hospitals it's all about patient safety and the hierarchy ladder; deferring to a higher authority.
Think the specter of headlines reading 'Deadly snake found in hospital. Hospital staff misidentified it.'

I omitted: When Tim told me and showed me the snake my first reaction was having him take it to the local university for ID even though it was obviously a garter. I wasn't about to go to the ER sup without a positive. Really, it's no different than a non physician making a patient diagnosis. A good way to get the whole place shut down and a dozen authorities crawling through with microscopes.

 

[Duriana]

That's true. Just wondering, was the snake released? Still outside of hospitals I believe people should think twice before killing harmless snakes.

 

[Thistles]

Garters are great about getting into everything, but pants is a new one for me. I used to manage a pet store and we had one that would come up the drain in the grooming salon every few months.

My step dad called me over to ID a snake he found yesterday. It was a big, FAT garter, and I think she's gonna be a mommy soon. I went to look at the pool equipment area where the snake was found and it was crawling with black widows. I caught 7 AF widows and they raided the widow babies (thousands of them - every female had at least 2 sacs, most freshly hatched) so they wouldn't eat the new baby garters about to be born.

On a related note, if anyone wants a Latrodectus mactans, lemme know. I'm excited about the baby snakes!

 

[The Snark]

That's true. Just wondering, was the snake released?

I think he mentioned turning it loose at a golf course he frequented that had a fish pond he wanted to depopulate. Something about his greens fees going to buy koi food.