Poisonous snakes have bitten a person more than 200 times, yet he is alive. These snakes include names ranging from mamba to cobra. The remarkable thing is that he intentionally cuts himself with these snakes so that the first universal anti-venom (a medicine that can eliminate the effect of snake venom on the body) can be made.
The man’s name is Tim Friede. He is 53 years old and hails from Wisconsin, USA. He kept many types of snakes in the house. Usually, the effect of a snake bite was not on them. But in 2001, Tim’s death came due to the bites of two poisonous cobra snakes.
Recalling that incident, Tim told National Geography – Two cobra snakes had bitten back-to-back within 1 hour. I was almost dead. It wasn’t funny at all. I had enough immunity to withstand the bite of one snake, but not two. After the snake attack, he was taken to the hospital, where he was in a coma for four days.
After regaining consciousness, Tim decided to work with snakes only. He is now the head of the Director of Herpetology, California Vaccination Research Company, Centivax.
During the research, Tim has got himself bitten by venomous snakes more than 200 times. He wants to make a universal anti-venom so that any snake bite can be treated.
Tim further said – whenever snakes bite, it hurts a lot. It is as if 100 bees have bitten simultaneously. According to the report, WHO believes that about 54 lakh people are bitten by snakes annually. Of these, from 81,000 to 1,38,000 people die.
According to a study in the year 2020, between 2000 and 2019, 1.2 million people died in India due to snake bites. This means an average of 58,000 people die every year. Of these, a quarter was those less than 15 years old. Tim said that because of these figures, our work becomes essential.
