Among the recent snake-bite victims was Jude Bush, a toddler who was bitten when he played with a small rattlesnake in Yucaipa. He was rushed to a hospital, where the doctor who was the anti-venom expert on duty was his own father.
"Two marks show where the baby rattler sunk its fang into the two-and-a-half-year old boy," KNBC's Mary Parks reported. "The snake hung on, injecting venom the whole time, until Jude shook the snake loose."
Jude's mother, Amy Bush, called a neighbor to catch the snake.
"I got the kids back in the house and called 911 and knew we needed a heliocopter because it was a rattlesnake bite," Amy told Parks. "We needed to get to the hospital quickly."
Within an hour, doctors and nurses at Loma Linda University Medical Center were treating Jude with antivenom. The facility has one of the busiest snakebite units in the country, treating as many as 50 victims a year.
The snakebite expert on the scene at the time Jude was taken in happened to be Dr. Sean Bush, a venom specialist known for his show 'Venom E.R.' and, coincidentally, Jude's father.
"Oh, my gosh," Dr. Sean Bush told Parks. "It was very difficult. It was agonizing. I felt I had to be there. I had to do it. I'm kind of the expert. I wanted him to have the best care."
Amy Bush told Parks her son was trying to put the snake in a cage, as he had seen his father do safely so many times before.
"It was quite ironic and scary," Amy said. "And I think Sean did a beautiful job of being able to balance being daddy and being Sean's care giver. He makes it a policy not to treat family. There was no choice in the matter."
The most common type of snake bite is from the Southern Pacific rattlesnake.
"But in the Inland empire and further east, in the desert, there is also the Mojave Green snake, which is more dangerous," Parks reported. "And the two snakes in some cases are cross-breeding, to create an even more toxic venom."
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