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Eaten by a snakebite

And it happened on a walk in Wiltshire!


Published by: Lucy Gardner and Jean Jollands
Published on: 20 September 2012

Getting excited about muddy old stones didn't come easily to me. ‘But it's a fossil,' my husband Barry, 34, grinned, adding it to his collection on a shelf in the kitchen. ‘How can you not find it fascinating?!'
‘I've no idea!' I giggled. He'd just come back from scouring local wasteland to add to his haul.
If he wasn't looking for fossils, he was whizzing around fixing our friend's cars or tinkering in the garden.
But I couldn't fault him. He was so hands-on with our kids Calvin, six and Mya, 22 months.
Generous to a fault, he even helped out my mum Sonya, 49, by walking her one-year-old greyhound, Porky.
That's what he was about to do now, in fact. Porky was already tugging at the lead.
‘I'll just take him round the playing field for a bit,' Barry said. ‘See you later,' I smiled.
But later, after Barry had dropped Porky off at Mum's, he seemed distracted.
‘I got bitten by a midge!' he moaned, scratching his ankle.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Don't be a wimp!' I teased. When we got up the following morning though, he was still moaning about it.
‘Ouch. It's massive,' I winced, as he pulled back the duvet to show me. There was now an egg-sized lump halfway up his shin, with what looked like two little puncture marks.
Barry brushed it off though, before popping round to see his mum, Tracy, 51. Three hours later, when he still hadn't come home, I phoned him.
‘Sorry, love,' he panted, as if trying to catch his breath. ‘My leg's got much worse.'
I listened, stunned, as he explained that he'd nearly blacked out doing a spot of gardening for his mum. He was laughing, though, as her partner Clive, 42, thought he knew what had bitten him.
‘He saw a wildlife programme or something,' Barry said. ‘He thinks it's a snake bite...'
‘In Wiltshire?!' I spluttered. ‘Oh, they're making a fuss over nothing,' he said, brushing it off. ‘It's just a midge. But I'm going to pop to the hospital anyway.' An hour later, Barry was back home.
‘They just gave me a bandage and some painkillers,' he said.
The next day, though, the lump was even bigger. It was really red, too, so I took him back to hospital.
They decided to keep him in overnight for observation.
When I went to visit Barry the following day, I was in for a shock. In fact, the hair on my arms shot up when he showed me his leg.
Overnight, it had swollen to twice its normal size and the skin from his ankle to the top of his calf had turned a purple-blue colour. ‘What's that?' I gasped, pointing at a vein that bulged from his ankle.
‘They're not sure,' Barry croaked, dizzy and weak. ‘But it could be something called a drainage vein. They think it might be drawing the poison up to my heart.
‘I can't make sense of it,' Barry admitted. ‘I'm trying to think back to that walk with Porky. There was long grass all around us and I felt a tiny nip on my leg, but that was it.
‘Porky acted strangely, too,' Barry continued. ‘He went nuts at that patch of grass until I eventually pulled him away.'
Well, whatever it had been, it'd taken a good chomp out of Barry. Now, doctors were pumping him with antibiotics.
‘When's Daddy coming back?' Calvin asked the following day when I made him breakfast. ‘Soon,' I insisted. ‘He's had a little nip on the leg but the doctors are going to make him all better.'
Staring up at the shelf in the kitchen that was crammed with his fossils, my heart panged.
Usually, those things drove me mad. Now, I'd have given anything to have him adding another to the pile.
Even Porky was missing him.
‘He's gone off his food,' Mum admitted. ‘I think he must be pining for Barry.'
A week later, Barry was still under observation in hospital. I was really starting to worry.
‘He'll be fine,' my sister Marie, 34, said reassuringly. ‘They'll work out what it was soon...'
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
‘Barry!' I gasped. ‘What are you doing here?'
Pale-faced and frail, he limped over to the sofa.
‘I've discharged myself,' he said. ‘I'm not getting any better, so what's the point?'
Then he showed us his leg. We both shuddered. The bruising had settled into a six-inch patch of jet-black skin.
‘All you did was take the dog for a flaming walk,' I sobbed. ‘I don't understand.'
Two weeks on, things still hadn't got better. Barry was hobbling about in terrible pain so I took him back to hospital... this time a different one.
‘That's definitely an adder bite,' a consultant confirmed after inspecting Barry's wound. ‘It's one of the worst I seen.'
‘Clive was right!' I gasped.
We listened, terrified, as he explained that Barry had developed a skin infection called cellulitis. ‘His muscle and flesh are being eaten away by the poison,' he said.
So the huge vein on his leg had been sending snake venom straight to his heart.
‘If you'd come here just a day later, you would have lost your leg,' the consultant said. ‘Maybe even your life.'
I couldn't believe it. Tears streamed down my face as I took in the news. I'd come so close to losing him.
‘At least we have answers now,' Barry said, stroking my arm.
Over the next few days, I prayed we were turning a corner as a new set of antibiotics started to ease the bruising.
Doctors then removed the dead flesh in the wound before performing a skin graft.
Finally, Barry was allowed home. ‘Arrgh!' Calvin shrieked when he saw Barry's scooped out crater of patchy, red skin.
It was a week before he could even stand and he had to teach himself to walk again.
Now, two months on, Barry's leg still looks like a pepperoni pizza. He's scarred for life.
Nobody in the family will ever visit that playing field again. We're too scared.
‘I'm not interested in these any more,' Barry told me the other day, throwing his prized fossils away. He's too scared to go wandering through fields now.
We assumed you had to go somewhere tropical to suffer a life-threatening snake bite. One innocent walk changed my hubby's life forever, but we're just glad he's here to tell the tale.
Kate McGill, 27, Malmesbury, Wiltshire