A respected snake researcher who had been making significant discoveries about the species since childhood has died after being bitten by a timber rattler.
William H. Martin died on Aug. 3 after being bitten the day before by a captive snake on the property at his home in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, according to his wife, Renee Martin.
Martin, who was 80 years old, continued to make arduous mountain hikes to document and count snake populations in remote sites, said Joe Villari, who manages the Bull Run Mountains Preserve in northern Virginia and would accompany Martin on his outings there.
John Sealy, a rattlesnake researcher from Stokesdale, North Carolina, who knew Martin for more than 3 decades, said Martin was perhaps the foremost authority on timber rattlers, a species he studied since childhood.
As a boy, Martin found a population of timber rattlers in the Bull Run Mountains that was previously unknown and convinced a herpetologist to come out and verify the find.
Sealy said Martin was known throughout the community of snake experts for his fieldwork and research, and his ability to find and document a species that makes itself hard to find.
Dan Keyler, a toxicology professor at the University of Minnesota and an expert on snakebites, said a second snakebite can be more dangerous than a first for some people and rattlesnakes can be more dangerous if they grow to a size that allows them to inject more venom. Age can also be a factor in a person’s susceptibility.
Martin had been bitten before in his career, but recovered.
Villari said timber rattlers tend to be docile, avoid human contact, and often won’t bite even if they are accidentally stepped on. “They save their venom for their prey,” he said.
Fire official Derek Chambers told CBS Colorado there are several things to remember if a snake were to bite you or someone you are with.
“Stay calm, try and slow down your heart rate as much as possible, leave the bite wound lower than the heart; don’t elevate,” he said. “Don’t put a tourniquet on it and don’t try and suck out the venom, but get the patient to a hospital as quick as possible.”
