Cobra serum by express in man's hour of need
Li, a 25-year-old resident of Beijing, is lucky to be alive.
The cobra he had been raising as a pet plunged its venomous fangs into Li's body on Tuesday afternoon.
Li was admitted to Beijing People's Liberation Army No 304 shortly after the bite, but the hospital did not any anti-venom serum on hand. The closest dose was in Shanghai.
Upon receiving an emergency call for help from Beijing, Shanghai Biopharmaceutical Company sent one of its staff workers on a flight to the capital with three tubes of serum carefully packed in an ice-filled plastic box.
The plane arrived in Beijing at about 11 pm that night, and the serum was administered by 1 am the following morning. Li was already paralyzed by that point.
"I rushed straight to Shanghai airport to catch the flight," recalled Huang Haibing, the man tasked with carrying the life-saving serum. "The sooner the patient receives the serum, the greater the chances are he will recover."
Cobras of the kind that bit Li are rarely seen in Beijing.
His relatives told Jiefang Daily yesterday that Li was in stable condition after receiving the serum, but would have to remain under observation at the hospital for a week.
They also said they would not allow him to continue keeping the snake at home, which they regarded as a very dangerous option for a pet.
China Daily
(China Daily 04/25/2008 page6)
