
It can happen to anybody," she told WJAX. iStockĪccording to Elijah's mother, there's one piece of advice everyone should follow when it comes to dealing with a snake bite. Here's what you should and shouldn't do if you're bitten by a poisonous snake. "If you see a snake in your home, the best thing to do is to leave it alone and let it go back outside or call a pest control expert!"

"The number one way people get bit by a snake at home is by trying to try to catch or kill snakes themselves," Ray Mitchell of Mitchell Pest Services previously told Best Life. The study's findings echo expert advice on avoiding a bad brush with the reptiles. Studies conducted on 45 wild cottonmouth specimens showed that 51 percent tried to escape and 78 displayed threat signals, only attempting to strike when they were picked up by a mechanical hand, Newsweek reports. According to Florida's Poison Control Center, 40 patients across 10 Northeast Florida counties have reported snake bites so far this year, ranging in age from three to 75 years old, News4Jax reports.īut despite the count, experts point out that water moccasins are naturally unaggressive and that bites from the poisonous reptile are relatively rare. ShutterstockĮlijah's accident isn't the first case of a run-in with a venomous snake in his area in recent weeks. The venomous snake involved in the latest bite is considered unaggressive. But another unique characteristic helped earn its name. The snake can be identified from other similar-looking non-venomous varieties of snake by its pupils-which are vertical rather than round-and its broad, blocky head in relation to its body. that spends a decent amount of time in the water and on land. As semi-aquatic animals, they're the only poisonous snake in the U.S. While the animal was never captured, doctors say the boy could identify the snake as a water moccasin after they showed him pictures of different species on their phones, News4Jax reports, per Newsweek.Īccording to Live Science, water moccasins are a type of pit viper that lives in a habitat stretching from southeastern Virginia to Florida, over to west-central Texas, and up to southern Illinois and Indiana.


On June 3, 7-year-old Elijah Bustamante was bitten by a venomous snake at his home in Green Cove Springs, Florida, local Jacksonville CBS affiliate WJAX reports. The young boy was bitten by a relatively common type of poisonous snake.
