The Most Horrific Snake Encounters Of 2020

The United Nations at one point found that snakebites were far more fatal than earlier viral threats like Ebola. How bad was it this year?

A report from German news agency Deutsche Welle from last year found snakebites claimed some 400,000 lives in the two years ending in 2016, making it 40 times more deadly than the Ebola virus, but certainly no match for COVID-19.

According to the report, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi-Annan once described snakebites as "the biggest public health crisis you've never heard of."

IBT has rounded up some more high-profile snakebite stories from 2020, and they're pretty horrific:

No. 7: Bathroom Break

It was a scary trip to the bathroom for 54-year-old Boonsong Plaikaew from Thailand in October. Feeling searing pain and seeing blood running down her leg, she jumped up to find a seven-foot-long snake in the toilet.

She was bit again on the finger by what was later found to be a python that was released by wildlife rescuers. She was given antibiotics at the hospital and later discharged without incident.

On finding reptiles in strange places, Australian snake catcher Joshua Castle told International Business Times that it “may be too hot outside so they need to cool off inside on tiles.”

No. 6: Cute Cat Video

Who doesn’t like a YouTube video featuring kittens? This one’s a bit different though. A video from a South African snake catcher saving kittens went viral in September.

Snake catcher Jason Arnold said he arrived at a property after receiving information that a python was lurking around, but he later discovered it was a deadly, eight-foot-long black mamba.

Arnold and his crew removed storage pallets and found two kittens hiding there. The snake was eventually removed and safely released, though Arnold in the video said the kittens are "lucky" to be alive.

No. 5: A Frightening Battle

This one is not so cute. Winston William Fish, a 78-year-old farmer in Tasmania, lost a frightening battle with a 5-foot tiger snake in January.

A report in The Canberra Times in Australia relayed details of the frightening battle. Fish was grazing sheep when he was bitten by the snake. Coroners recounting witness testimony said the first people on scene found Fish holding the head of the snake, which was latched onto his right hand.

"She saw that it had wrapped around Mr. Fish's right arm up to his neck and its body was moving around,” the coroner said. “At this time Mr. Fish was still conscious."

A neighbor later intervened and cut the snake’s head off with a knife. Fish, despite treatment, died days later in the hospital.

No: 4: A Fatal Bicycle Fall

In India, a venomous snake bit a middle-aged woman in the hand in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in October. Startled by the sight of the snake while bicycling home from work, she and her husband both fell onto the unidentified snake species.

Initially writing the marks off as injuries from her fall, the woman was later rushed to a hospital after experiencing severe pain in her hand near the site of the bites. She was treated days later at an area medical college but later died from the injuries.

No: 3: A Woman’s Best Friend

Back to the pet files. This time, a dog was a Tennessee woman’s best friend in early December. Haley McCormack said she came home to an unwelcome visitor: a venomous copperhead snake.

Her pitbull, Arlo, however, came to the rescue.

“As I pass the corner of my front porch, the snake is already recoiled back,” she told YourCentralValley. “Arlo (the dog) lunged out and actually grabbed it by its tail.”

The dog managed to kill the snake before it could bite McCormack, but the snake managed to bite Arlo at least three times during the encounter. He experienced swelling and difficulty breathing, but eventually recovered after antivenom treatment at an emergency vet clinic.

No. 2: A Miracle Recovery

From India comes a story of a miraculous recovery. A 5-year-old boy, Nischit Gowda, stepped on a venomous Indian krait that wandered into his home in July. He slipped into a coma shortly after the bite and local hospital officials discounted the prospects of recovery.

Taking him quickly to another facility, the boy later become completely paralyzed and placed on life support.

Within the two weeks, his paralysis released and he was fully recovered some three weeks later.

No. 1: Attempted Murder

This oldie but goodie is now a documentary series on HBO. “Alabama Snake” recounts the story of Rev. Glenn Summerford, a snake-handling preacher who forced his wife to stick her hands into a box of snakes in the 1990s.

A report from the Associated Press at the time found his wife, Darlene, was bitten twice during what she said was attempted murder.

″He took a pipe and hit the cages real hard so the snakes got real mad and then grabbed me by the hair and said he would push my face in if I didn’t stick my hand in there,″ she said. ″He said I had to die because he wanted to marry another woman.”

Her husband was later convicted and given a 99-year prison sentence.