Why A Snakebite Victim In An Indian Village Won't Walk Through A Door
When a young boy in a village in Jangjir, India, came home with a snakebite, his family needed to get him to a clinic. But they didn't dare take him out through the front door. Instead, a handful of men dismantled the thatch roof of his home. Then family members inside lifted the boy up, out through the roof and over a six-foot wall into their arms.
"You can't take the patient out through the doorway," says the boy's neighbor Bedmathi, who goes by one name. "The venom gets stronger and they die. I've seen it with my own eyes."
Fortunately, the boy survived — although not because of his rooftop exit. The family was able to get him to a clinic that's a 90-minute drive away, where he was treated with antivenom.
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