A five-year-old girl is recovering from a highly venomous snake bite that sent poison racing through her body.
Emily Rose Oehler was bitten on her left leg by a rattlesnake Saturday morning during a family outing with her mother, three siblings and a friend at Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet, Texas.
The snake was identified as a four-foot-long western diamondback rattlesnake, a poisonous snake found throughout the southwest.
Doctors gave Emily nearly 40 doses of anti-venom as they used marker pen to track the alarming pace at which the snake poison traveled up her leg towards her abdomen.
Doctors used markers to measure how fast the venom is traveled up Emily’s leg toward her abdomen
Emily was attacked by a rattlesnake Saturday morning during a family outing in Texas. Pictured: Emily at Longhorn Cavern State Park right before she was bitten by a snake
‘We are a family that watches a lot of documentaries,’ Alicia Oehler, Emily’s mother, told Today. ‘It made it that much scarier, knowing and trying to hold back every fear and emotion I could just to keep going.’
Rattlesnake venom can take just seconds to travel from their retractable fangs, through the skin and into a victim’s bloodstream, according to Healthline. People should get medical help within 30 minutes of being bitten. If left untreated, the bite can cause severe organ damage and death within two or three days.
After Emily was bitten, Alicia ran down to the park’s office for help. An ambulance arrived four minutes later and drove Emily to a nearby hospital in Burnet.
While there, paramedics determined she needed to anti-venom, which was available at a children’s medical center in Austin, which is roughly a one-hour drive away.
‘We get maybe a mile or two away and she started vomiting and wouldn’t stop vomiting,’ Alicia said. ‘So they called in a helicopter to rush her in for treatment.’
Once Emily reached the hospital, bags of anti-venom were pumped into her intravenously.
However, doctors, who looked at Emily’s swelling to track the venom, noticed the poison was traveling up her abdomen.
Doctors gave Emily nearly 40 doses of anti-venom to stop the snake poison from spreading throughout her body
This is the rattlesnake that bit Emily Saturday morning at Longhorn Cavern State Park in Burnet, Texas
‘Once I seen it there it was so terrifying,’ Alicia told Daily Mail Online.
A day later, Emily was in a lot of pain.
‘[On Sunday], she’d be screaming and crying from the pain,’ Alicia described. ‘I’d blow on her face to calm her down. … She’s so strong.’
After nearly 40 doses of anti-venom, doctors were able to stop the snake poison from going pass her abdomen.
On Monday, nearly 48 hours after the attack, doctors saw signs in Emily’s blood work that the medicine was starting to take effect.
In fact, the five-year-old is in such a better mood that she started making plans for when she leaves the hospital.
‘She’s got her personality back,’ Alicia said.
Emily is still receiving anti-venom treatment.
However, with one vial of anti-venom costing $1,500 to $2,200, Emily’s family is now facing another challenge – medical costs.
Her family does not have medical insurance and have launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for Emily’s medical costs.