Responding to a snake bite

Houston, TX - Jun 10, 2026

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With the warm weather also comes snake bite season. If you enjoy spending time outdoors, understanding the magnitude of snake bites is crucial. A Baylor College of Medicine toxicologist and emergency medicine physician explains different snake bites and cautions how to react to nearby snakes.

"Typically, we encourage people to leave a snake alone if they see one. A lot of bites occur when people are messing with a snake or trying to capture it," said Dr. Stephen "Alex" Harding, director of medical toxicology and assistant professor in the Henry J.N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor. "If you see one in your backyard or a place where you might have small kids or pets, one possibility is to spray it with a water hose from a safe distance, and usually, it'll slither away and find somewhere else to be. You can also call a local animal control company to have the snake safely relocated."

People are most likely to come across snakes in wooded areas and natural habitats further away from urbanization, such as parks and along bayous, but they can also be found in some backyards. There are two types of snakes of concern in North America:
Pit vipers (copperheads, cottonmouths, rattlesnakes): Cause bruising, bleeding or tissue destruction when bitten.
Elapids (coral snakes): Cause pain and sometimes even paralysis depending on the area of the country/world you are when bitten.

Identifying snakes can be a challenge, so if a snake bites you, go to the hospital as soon as possible to be evaluated by an emergency physician. Keep the extremity that was bitten elevated and try not to move it as much as possible in the meantime. If there is an opportunity to get a photo of the snake, that can help with identification, but most importantly, get to the emergency room. Do not try to capture the snake or bring it with you to the hospital.

If you are bitten by a snake, you will feel pain to the site of the bite. With pit vipers, you might notice some redness to the area or swelling that progresses over time. Swelling can move up the extremity. Among the pit vipers in the Houston area, copperheads are most common and their bites tend to have the best outcomes. Cottonmouths (also known as water moccasins) are the second most common in the area and are more dangerous, with rattlesnakes being the most dangerous overall.

Rattlesnakes or cottonmouths, in more severe cases, can affect the way your blood clots and over time, you could develop issues with bleeding elsewhere (bleeding gums, gastrointestinal bleeding, blood blisters on the body). Coral snakes in the Houston area mostly just cause pain, but if bitten by a coral snake in some other parts of the country, you could develop paralysis (double vision, difficulty speaking, difficulty swallowing, weakness in muscles or difficulty in breathing). Coral snakes in Houston are overall less dangerous than other parts of the country.

"Luckily, there aren't many rattlesnakes in the Houston area. Sometimes we'll see them come from Galveston or Corpus Christi. Areas with dunes near the ocean tend to be good habitats for rattlesnakes," Harding said.

Most hospitals carry antivenoms for pit vipers, but you might have to be transferred to another hospital depending on where you go after getting bitten. Hospitals do not carry antivenom for coral snakes, and this antivenom typically comes from the zoo.

"A consideration when deciding where to go for treatment: If you know it was a coral snake or something more exotic like a privately owned snake/pet, going to a hospital that would likely have access to a zoo could be helpful in getting the antivenom more quickly," Harding said.