The three-year-old girl's excitement to retrieve a package turned into a harrowing ordeal after she was bitten by a rattlesnake in her backyard.
On July 13, the young girl, identified in a GoFundMe campaign as Addy, ran to the porch to pick up an Amazon package when the incident occurred in Santa Clarita, a community north of Los Angeles.
A southern pacific rattlesnake was hiding under the package and bit Addy's left hand, prompting her mother, Lynn, to rush her to the hospital where she received antivenom treatment.
After being given a dose of antivenom at the hospital, Addy was transferred to the pediatric unit where she received two more doses of the antidote.
The young girl spent two nights in the hospital and, according to her father, Manny Barajas, the three doses of antivenom seem to have worked, with minimal bruising and normal movement in her hand and arm.
“We’re happy to share that Addy is doing really well,” Barajas wrote in an update. “It’s been a week since she’s been home, and all we can say is that she is one tough little cookie and the bravest little girl we know.”
Locally, the Massasauga rattlesnake is the only venomous snake in Ontario, according to provincial government information.
The snake is usually about 50 to 70 centimetres long and has a triangular head, tail with a small rattle, and grey to dark brown body with darker brown blotches.
The Massasauga's habitat is along the eastern side of Georgian Bay and on the Bruce Peninsula, with two small populations found in the Wainfleet Bog and near Windsor.
If bitten by a rattlesnake, the Ontario Poison Centre advises people to remain calm, call 911, and move as little as possible to slow the spread of venom.
No one has died from a Massasauga bite in Ontario in more than 50 years, and the snakes typically avoid humans but will bite when they feel threatened or cornered.
