Video above: How to survive an animal attack
FLORENCE, Arizona (WJW) – A toddler is recovering in the hospital after she was bitten twice by a rattlesnake in Arizona.
Jacquelyn Reed, who lives with her family near Florence, Arizona, said the incident happened while she was walking with her young daughter, 15-month-old Cara, outside their home late last week.
“I left her side to throw a piece of trash away 50 feet away. While I was gone for less than 10 seconds, it seems the snake got her twice,” she wrote on Facebook. “I came back and she was crying, I saw her foot and the snake tucked behind a propane tank against our house.”
The family rushed Cara to the emergency room, where medical professionals started giving her antivenom.
“Sweet Cara was neurologically decompensating pretty quickly and began vomiting quite a lot as she was becoming lethargic,” Reed continued in the post.
Cara was intubated and flown to Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit.
“She has received quite a bit of antivenom, and the team here has been more than on top of it,” the mother said over the weekend. “They are keeping a super close eye on her foot, the blood flow and the swelling but keeping her intubated for her pain control.”
The child’s aunt, Delia Reed, wrote on a GoFundMe page that Cara received more than 30 vials of antivenom during treatment.
Reed has been documenting her daughter’s time in the hospital, showing photos of Cara with oxygen tubes and a blackened foot.
At times, Cara’s oxygen levels dropped as low as 25%, and doctors told the family that her foot injury is “one of the most severe,” Reed wrote on Tuesday.
“We will be looking to see what kind of recovery she can make, but right now, nothing is off the table as far as her long-term damage goes,” she said.
But the family has shared some uplifting news in recent days.
“Cara was able to come off of the heliox and progress to no oxygen at all by the end of the day!” the mother said on Thursday. “This morning we decided to stop her tube feeds and see if we can encourage eating again. Hopefully she starts to eat enough to where we can take her home without a tube feed!”
According to Reed, doctors are waiting for Cara’s foot to “finish its progression” before follow-up tests to determine if the venom is still in the toddler’s system, causing internal bleeding.
In the latest update, Reed thanked everyone for showing their love and support, saying, “Our sweet warrior continues to fight a hard fight and we are so cheering her on!”
“We are so blessed,” Reed told Nexstar’s WJW on Thursday. “Every MD who comes by to see her again says that she’s a miracle. She shouldn’t be here.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, venomous bites, which occur when a snake injects venom into the body during a bite, are considered dangerous and often life-threatening.
If a victim is bitten more than once, according to the Cleveland Clinic, they could get multiple doses of venom.
“This can increase the severity of your symptoms and lessen the amount of time to get treatment to stop severe symptoms from affecting you,” the clinic said.
As of Thursday evening, the GoFundMe page has raised more than $17,000 to help the family with medical expenses.
