Rattlesnake visits home in Arizona

(MENAFN) The rattlesnake hotline call handler had a question. Could Christa Reinach see whether the 3ft-long (1m) snake, currently stretched out on her patio, had black and white bands on its tail?

"Yes," said Reinach, eyeing the creature through her window. While the call handler couldn't be sure, those markings likely meant that Reinach had a venomous western diamondback rattlesnake on her property. A snake relocator would be there as soon as possible.

Reinach sat back and waited. Although a bite could potentially be fatal, she wasn't overly worried by the rattlesnake herself. And her dogs, two Chinese Shar-Peis, were safely locked inside the house. Reinach lives in Rio Verde Foothills, a community near Scottsdale, Arizona. Because this community is right by the desert, she had every expectation that snakes would appear on her land from time to time.

But she didn't want the snake sticking around for too long – particularly because of her horses, who might put their heads to the ground to inspect a snake, only to get bitten on the nose. "If the nose swells, then they cannot breathe," Reinach says.

"I really don't believe in killing anything when it is just out of place," Reinach added.

Between 7,000-8,000 people are bitten by a venomous snake every year in the US; around five die. Pets are even more likely to suffer a bite, and to be killed by it. Of all US snake species, rattlesnakes are among the most dangerous. In a study of snakebites affecting 11,138 patients, published in 2019, the type of snake that caused the bite was identifiable in roughly half of those cases – and within that group, the most common bite was a rattlesnake bite. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that, for anyone bitten by a rattlesnake, 10-44% will have lasting injuries, such as losing a finger.

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