Snake-bite victim makes good case for import ban on dangerous 'pets'

Alan Ferguson
The Province

Thursday, December 13, 2007

My first instinct was to feel sympathy for poor Jason Hansen, who risks losing his middle finger after being bitten by his "pet," a five-year-old poisonous snake called Eve.

Mind you, I'm a tad suspicious of folks who choose for company animals capable of killing them.

Perhaps, they experience some strange frisson of excitement at the thought of being eaten alive.

And my sympathy turned to alarm as Hansen started to blame everyone but himself for his plight.

He says that if the government allows poisonous creatures into the country it also has an obligation to provide medicines to protect their owners.

It is true that the government has inexplicably failed to act on legislation to curb the ownership of exotic animals, particularly after a 32-year-old woman was mauled to death by a "pet" Siberian tiger near 100 Mile House earlier this year.

But it's stretching logic to argue that scarce public health dollars should be budgeted to cater to the tiny minority of citizens who voluntarily put themselves at risk from wild animals.

The 36-year-old amateur herpetologist is also up in arms over the refusal by his doctors to administer an anti-venom concoction he had got from a pal up north.

"If they would have given it to me at the time," our hero grumbled to Province reporter Jack Keating, "I wouldn't be sitting here with a black finger and no flesh on it . . . my arm has basically been mutilated."

The problem is that by Hansen's own admission Eve's bite was "dry" -- that is, no actual venom was released, just nasty toxins mingled with the snake's saliva.

According to staff at the B.C. Poison Control Centre, injecting him with his friend's anti-venom supply would have been medically futile.

Even if it wasn't, the doctors would have had to be sure the serum was safe -- which they were not, since I'm told the batch was already three years beyond its expiry date.

But what has Hansen to say?

"I'm pretty upset about the whole thing. I think [the doctors] kind of let me down a bit," he told Keating from Surrey Memorial Hospital.

These are the doctors who spent hours operating on his damaged finger in a gallant effort to save it.

You begin to wonder what else has got under Hansen's skin.

For all his wrath -- and undoubted pain -- he is the architect of his own misfortune.

He took a calculated risk in acquiring a snake he likens to a "wild beast."

And he has run up a big public medical bill for treatment necessitated by his careless handling of it.

It is true the government has let Hansen down.

It should long ago have passed legislation to protect him, and others like him, from their own follies.

Exotic, unpredictable pets don't belong in the home.

It would benefit the beasts, not to mention their incautious owners, if they were banned tomorrow.

-- alan.f@telus.nett
© The Vancouver Province 2007