Gila monster kills man, 34, days before antivenin research breakthrough

No,  it is not a myth that Gila monster bites can be deadly

LAKEWOOD,  Colorado––Suffering a slow,  painful death between February 12 and February 16,  2024,  Lakewood,  Colorado resident Christopher Ward,  34,  unintentionally demonstrated for the first time in 136 years that yes,  a Gila monster bite can kill a human.

Reports of Gila monsters painfully biting handlers are rare,  but not unheard of.  Florida wildlife exhibitor Mario Tabraue,  featured in the 2020 Netflix series Tiger King, Murder, Mayhem and Madness,  was among those injured in 2023.

Fatalities,  on the other hand,  are so seldom documented that many alleged experts have long denied that they occur at all.

Bit the hand who fed him

Ward “owned two of the reptiles and became ill after being bitten on the hand by one of the animals,  an incident report from the Lakewood Police Department shows,”  reported Amanda Musa for CNN.

“Ward’s girlfriend called 911 just before midnight on February 12,”  Musa narrated, “after she entered the room where the reptiles were kept and found that one of them had ‘latched onto Ward’s hand,’  Lakewood police department animal control officer Leesha Crookston wrote.  Ward immediately started showing symptoms,  vomiting several times before he passed out,  and his breathing stopped,  the report said.

“Ward’s girlfriend told Crookston,”  Musa continued,  “that she did not know exactly what led to the bite because she was in a different room at the time,  but said she heard Ward say something that ‘didn’t sound right,’ according to the report.”

“Declared brain-dead”

Promptly hospitalized,  Ward “was put on life support and was later ‘declared brain dead,’”  Musa summarized.

“Crookston told Ward’s girlfriend,”  Musa added,  “that it is illegal to own Gila monsters in the city of Lakewood.”

Impounded by Crookston and personnel from Colorado Parks & Wildlife and the state Department of Natural Resources,  the Gila monsters were reportedly transferred to a reptile sanctuary in South Dakota.

Ward,  updated Mead Gruver for Associated Press,  “was hardly alone in having the gnarly looking lizard for a pet.

“They’re legal to own in most states,  easily found through breeders and at reptile shows,  and widely regarded for their striking color patterns and typically easygoing personality.”

“Ward’s girlfriend told animal control,”  reported Gruver,  that “they bought [the gila monster named] Winston at a reptile exhibition in Denver in October and bought another Gila monster named Potato from a breeder in Arizona in November.

Lethality denied since 1888

Arizona State University professor Dale DeNardo told Gruver,  Gruver wrote,  that “Before Ward, the last person to die of a Gila monster bite, around 1930,  may have had cirrhosis of the liver.  A yet-to-be released autopsy report may show if the venom from Ward’s lizard killed him outright or whether an underlying condition,  such as an allergy,  was a factor,”  Gruver finished.

But ANIMALS 24-7 found through extensive searching at NewspaperArchive.com that the only news coverage mentioning alleged Gila monster fatalities published in the 20th and first 24 years of the 21st century consisted of refutations that Gila monster bites are anything worse than extremely painful for several days.

Though widely believed,  that a Gila monster bite can be fatal to humans or any animals outside of its normal prey range has been vehemently denied by reptile collectors and enthusiasts since 1888.

Smithsonian scientist ascribed fatalities by Gila monsters to whiskey

The foundation for denial,  and for arguments that Gila monsters should be exempted from laws against keeping venomous pets,  originated with Henry Crecy Yarrow [1840-1929],   who from 1878 to 1889 served as first curator of herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution.

Yarrow in 1888,  after conducting extensive experiments with Gila monsters,  rabbits,  and chickens,  declared Gila monster bites not potentially fatal to humans.

Yarrow investigated the matter,  according to syndicated newspaper accounts,  in response to “The case of Yeager,  who is supposed to have died at Fairbank in southern Arizona,  from the bite of a Gila monster,”  after the deaths of “several others” who went unnamed.

“But the doctor evidently thinks,”  the 1888 coverage concluded,  “the death of these men is but another proof of the killing qualities of Arizona whiskey.”

Rancher claimed to have seen two near-fatalities & one actual death

Running down the details,  ANIMALS 24-7 discovered a widely distributed 1893 report entitled “An Ugly Reptile:  experiences with the Gila monster of Arizona,”  in which rancher C.M. Bruce described to the anonymous author two near fatalities that Bruce claimed to have witnessed.

One involved “a barkeeper in Benson” who kept a Gila monster as a bar room pet,  and may have been the “Yeager” whose alleged death Yarrow investigated.

According to Bruce,  there was also “A fatal case at a little town on my ranch only a few weeks ago.  A vaquero angered the reptile and presently it bit him,  and in half an hour he was dead.”

Bruce finally described first hand the best-known Gila monster bite case of all,  afflicting Walter Vail [1852-1906],  whose Empire Land & Cattle Company at peak controlled a million acres of range land scattered throughout five states

Walter Vail

As summarized by Wikipedia,  “On May 8, 1890,  southeast of Tucson,  Arizona Territory,  Empire Ranch owner Walter Vail captured and thought he had killed a Gila monster.  He tied it to his saddle and it bit the middle finger of his right hand and would not let go.

“A ranch hand pried open the lizard’s mouth with a pocket knife,  cut open his finger to stimulate bleeding,  and then tied saddle strings around his finger and wrist.  They summoned Dr. John C. Handy of Tucson, who took Vail back to Tucson for treatment.  Vail experienced swollen and bleeding glands in his throat for some time afterward.”

Adds Wikipedia,  “Handy’s friend Dr. George Goodfellow of Tombstone was among the first to research the actual effects of Gila monster venom,”  going on to refute erroneous claims of Gila monster lethality published by Scientific American in 1890.

Claimed a “Dr. Ward” in the Arizona Graphic edition of September 23,  1899,  “I have never been called to attend a case of Gila monster bite, and I don’t want to be.  I think a man who is fool enough to get bitten by a Gila monster ought to die.  The creature is so sluggish and slow of movement that the victim of its bite is compelled to help largely in order to get bitten.”

Evolved from venomous ancestor of snakes & lizards

Indeed,  according to Nevada Department of Wildlife reptile biologist Jason Jones,  Gila monsters spend from eighty to 95% of their lives hiding underground.

Because Gila monsters are extremely dependent upon acquired knowledge of their habitat,  they rarely can be successfully translocated.  If removed from where they are found,  Gila monsters must be kept and fed in captivity for the remainder of their approximate 20-year lifespans.

Gila monsters identical to those of today emerged in the fossil record about 80 million years ago;  lizards directly ancestral to Gila monsters appeared around 145 million years ago.

One of only three venomous lizard species,  Gila monsters appear to have evolved from a venomous common ancestor of snakes and lizards circa 200 million years ago,  according to research led by Bryan Fry of the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne,  published by the peer-reviewed journal Nature in 2005.

Universal antivenin near?

This raises the possibility that a discovery announced by Scripps Research on February 21,  2024 in the journal Science Translational Medicine might make Christopher Ward the last human fatality from a Gila monster bite,  albeit that much more study is needed.

According to a Scripps Research media release,  a Scripps team “developed an antibody that can block the effects of lethal toxins in the venoms of a wide variety of snakes found throughout Africa,  Asia and Australia.

“The antibody protected mice from the normally deadly venom of snakes including black mambas and king cobras,”  Scripps Research said.  “It represents a large step toward a universal antivenin that would be effective against the venom of all snakes.”

How important is this?

“More than 100,000 people a year,  mostly in Asia and Africa,”  Scripps Research explained,  “die from snakebite envenoming,  rendering it more deadly than most neglected tropical diseases.”

The “100,000” figure is almost certainly grossly exaggerated,  since India constitutes 18% of global human population,  includes habitat for many of the world’s most deadly snakes,  including cobras and kraits,  and the Indian Central Bureau of Health Intelligence documents under 1,000 human deaths from snakebite per year (947 in 2021.)

But snakebite is nonetheless a significant public health problem;  nearly 86,000 Indians suffered snake bites in 2021,  many of whom might have died had they not received antivenin injections.

“Current antivenins are produced by immunizing animals with snake venom,”  Scripps Research continued,  “and each generally only works against a single snake species.  This means that many different antivenins must be manufactured to treat snake bites in the different regions,”  a slow and expensive process.

Mambas,  cobras,  & kraits

The Scripps Research team,  however,  “isolated and compared venom proteins from a variety of elapids,  a major group of venomous snakes including mambas,  cobras,  and kraits.

“Among the 30 antibodies identified in that screen,  one stood out as having the strongest interactions across all the toxin variants:  an antibody called 95Mat5.”

95Mat5 can be synthesized.

However,  Scripps Research added,  “While 95Mat5 is effective against the venom of all elapids,”  the range of venomous species most common in Asia and Africa,  “it does not block the venom of vipers,  the second group of venomous snakes,”  including adders and rattlesnakes,  most common in the U.S. and Europe.

Cocktails for two

Therefore Joseph Jardine, PhD,  identified as senior author,  assistant professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research,  is “now pursuing broadly neutralizing antibodies against another elapid toxin,  as well as two viper toxins,”  the Scripps Research media release said.

“We think that a cocktail of these four antibodies could potentially work as a universal antivenom against any medically relevant snake in the world,”  said Scripps Research scientist Irene Khalek.

But Khalek said nothing about Gila monster venom,  albeit that it is apparently closely chemically related to snake venoms.

Synthetic antivenins save horses

The advent of synthesized antivenins such as are produced by Scripps helped to bring about the January 16,  2002 closure of one of the oldest traditional antivenin production facilities in the world,  the King Institute in Guindy,  Chennai,  India,  a year and six weeks after ANIMALS 24-7 visited and photographed the site in 2000.

The King Institute produced antivenins by injecting snake venom into a resident herd of 140 to 150 retired Indian Army horses and mules,  waiting until the horses formed antibodies to the venom,  and then drawing blood serum from which the antivenin was extracted.

If properly done,  the procedure should not have harmed the horses,  whose capacity for withstanding the effects of snake venom is many times that of a human.  But 77 horses––half the King Institute herd––had died during the year preceding the ANIMALS 24-7 visit,  allegedly from overbleeding,  underfeeding,  and general neglect.

The King Institute subsequently released 46 mules and horses to the Indian national organization People for Animals for retirement in custody of the Blue Cross of India.

Blue Cross cofounder S.V. Sundaram and his son and successor Chinny Krishna had sought since 1964 to bring the King Institute under humane regulation and inspection.

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