A 6-year-old boy was bitten by a Palestinian Viper snake during a family outing in the Golan Heights. The child went into cardiac arrest.

Harel Deshen arrived with his parents Tirzah and Yakir to visit friends who were camping nearby an area pool. As they were walking, Harel suddenly felt a burning pain in his left leg, telling his parents immediately. His parents were not able to see what occurred, or what caused the injury, nor did they realize the seriousness of his injury. They headed to the camping site and with the help of a flashlight, they saw the two red marks on Harel’s skin and realized he had been bitten by a poisonous snake.

As they called Magen David Adom, they ran with Harel towards the road from the camping area, a 15 minutes hike, with a dispatcher explaining an ambulance was heading towards them, to meet them at the road. Dad explained Harel was not feeling well and was having difficulty breathing. He also vomited and showed other signs of his condition deteriorating.

Harel was transported to the emergency room of Ziff Hospital in Tzefas, where he went into cardiac arrest. CPR was begun and B”H, was successful.

Dr. Moti Eini, a senior intensive care physician at Ziff explained that the child went into cardiac arrest as a result of his blood pressure dropping, which was the result of the body going into anaphylactic shock.

After successful CPR, Harel was moved to an intensive care unit, in a medically induced coma and on assisted breathing. He was also given anti venom.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)