Having a pet reptile, no matter how exotic it may seem, always represents a significant danger. This has been demonstrated with the case of a man from Colorado, USA, died after being bitten by his pet: a Gila monster.
It was Christopher Ward, 34, who died after being bitten by the desert lizard he kept as a pet. This is a rare death from the bite of one of these lizards, which are poisonous and their domestication is illegal.
How did the Colorado man die from being bitten by his pet?
Ward was taken to a hospital shortly after being bitten by one of his two Gila monsters on February 12.. Lakewood Police Department spokesman John Romero reported this past Tuesday that he was put on a ventilator shortly after and he died on Friday.
Jefferson County coroners declined Tuesday to comment on the death. They also did not say whether the tests showed whether Ward died from the pet’s poison or some other medical reason.
According to media reports, Ward’s girlfriend gave the lizard named Winston and another named Potato to Lakewood Animal Control Officer Leesha Crookston and other officers the day after the bite occurred.
The woman told police she heard something that “didn’t sound good” and entered a room, where she saw Winston holding onto Ward’s hand, according to Crookston’s report. It was then that she saw that Ward “immediately began showing symptoms, vomited several times, and eventually passed out and stopped breathing,†the report says.
Ward was admitted to a hospital on life support. A few days later, doctors declared him brain dead.
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According to the man’s girlfriend, they had purchased Winston at a reptile show in Denver in October, and Potato from an Arizona breeder in November. But when she was informed that Gila monsters were illegal in Lakewood, the woman told officers that she wanted them out of her home as soon as possible, according to her report.
The agents who work with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources sent the lizards to Reptile Gardens, outside of Rapid City, South Dakota. They also took 26 spiders of different species from the house to a nearby animal shelter.
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