Aurora – Bryon Shipley tracked prairie rattlesnakes across an Aurora nature preserve for five years, until the day this month he almost died.
A snake Shipley collected as part of a behavior study lunged and bit the 47-year-old researcher through a cloth bag.
Prairie rattlers aren’t supposed to do that.
Shipley fell unconscious almost instantly. That wasn’t supposed to happen either.
Only one or two people a year in the United States react so severely to a rattlesnake bite, doctors say.
Last summer, University of Colorado snake biologist David Chiszar also nearly died on the floor of his laboratory after a rattler got his thumb.
The coincidence raises questions about whether there’s something strangely potent in the venom of a few rattlers or if something makes snake researchers particularly vulnerable to a severe reaction.
“I’m concerned about all the people around the country who work in zoos, who work in labs, in places with rattlesnakes in cages,” Chiszar said.
In Shipley’s case, within a minute of the snakebite, he was purple-faced and struggling for breath. He was whisked by helicopter to Denver Health.
A caretaker for reptiles and amphibians at the Denver Zoo, Shipley has spent his weekends and vacations at the Plains Conservation Center following radio-tagged rattlers.
The morning of Sept. 3, he tracked, measured and weighed a rattler, which then bit him through the weighing bag.
When CU’s Chiszar heard about Shipley’s case, he had an queasy feeling of déjà vu.
After a laboratory rattlesnake bit Chiszar about a year ago, he said, he wrestled the animal back into a cage and dialed 911 as his breath disappeared.
Paramedics sped Chiszar to Boulder Community Hospital, where doctors saved his life with airway-opening drugs.
Now, Chiszar said he worries about constant exposure to snake chemicals he and Shipley experienced in the laboratory and the zoo.
For some people, repeated exposures can make them less reactive, said Richard Dart, director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center.
For others, especially people with active immune systems, exposures can be increasingly dangerous.
Both Chiszar and Shipley have asthma.
Dart said that may have contributed to their reaction, but he suspects it is something about an individual snake’s venom that leads to most severe reactions.
Chiszar decided to continue his work with rattlesnakes.
Shipley said he won’t go back into the field at the conservation center and says he’s having trouble sleeping.
He’s not even sure he’ll keep his job at the zoo.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
