venomous bites (USA only)

The head of my local Herp society hosts an NPR show a few times a year and had mentioned me joining him to field some snake questions. After folklore gets out of the way, I know a lot will center around bites. I've found that there were 16 fatalities in 2003 (US average is 12) and roughly 8,000 bites annually. My question is (if anyone has access to this or knows of a website) are bites that occur in zoos and private collections included in these numbers? Churches? Any number that can be confirmed as untreated?
What I'm getting at here is I'd like to assure folks that they are about as likely to die from a snakebite as a falling anvil.

Can't help you with the numbers on humans, but I will say what I experienced with snake bit dogs and cats in Arizona (rattle snake). The smaller the animal, the more antivenin is needed and the higher chance of fatality. The reason you need more antivenin is that you need to bind up as much as possible in these little guys. I had a dachshund (12 pound dog) that took 6 vials of antivenin to pull him through, and even then it was touch and go. Rattle snake bites cause a lot of pain and swelling and tissue damage locally, but their real threat is the cardiotoxin to the heart in the short term and damage to the blood cells leading to low platelet numbers and bleeding a few days later. The closer the snakebite is to the heart, the worse the prognosis. (i.e. muzzles and paw bites are painful, but rarely fatal...but a bite to the chest is a real problem.)

We had many dogs that owners would not pay for antivenin for their animals (at $350-400 a vial you can understand why some may not) and with supportive care MOST pull through. The only thing I ever found that would reduce the pain for these guys was antivenin. Pain killers did nothing for them and they were miserable for days without it. You also have to be prepared for necrosis (death) of the tissues in the area of the bite and the risk of infection is high.

I'm certainly not missing rattlesnake bites up here in Chicago. But to make a long story short, even these smaller critters with rattle snake bites rarely die WITH PROPER TREATMENT. (fluids, antibiotics, antivenin, pain killers, and sometimes even fresh frozen plasma transfusions or whole blood if they start bleeding) Compared to a human, who outweighs them by 2 to 100 times, I would think humans would rarely die from rattler bites...but the risk of nerve damage in the area could be a problem (especially the hands). While a bite won't usually kill you, morbidity is quite high.

Thanks, Hurley. I'm particularly looking for bite specifics on humans, just numbers of deaths/amputations, big stuff. And any data on how bites occured. Mostly numbers and percentages, there will be an MD on the show to talk first aid and the medical aspects of envenomation.

Did you check with "Venom ER"?

Actually, that might be a good suggestion Cav. Dept. of Fish and Game might have some ideas as well. If I think of it, I'll contact a friend of mine. He handles rattlesnakes and keeps quite a few in his collection. He's been bitten once in the 30 years he's been handling rattlesnakes. He might know where you could get that kind of information.