19-month-old Adriano Wah wasn’t fazed when a rattler attacked him from beneath his toy grocery cart, puncturing his leg with two fang wounds.
He didn’t get frightened until strangers gathered around him for a morning-long odyssey last Tuesday. In an attempt to pick up cell-phone signal, Adriano’s parents drove him to the top of a nearby point. An ambulance arrived and the toddler was airlifted to Flagstaff Medical Center.
Thanks to the quick response and the work of FMC’s pediatric intensive care unit, the strong tot is expected to make a full recovery.
Doctors made two lateral incisions around Adriano’s swollen leg to relieve pressure, said his mother, Winona Wah, in a telephone interview from FMC last weekend.
“If they didn’t make that choice, he would have most likely lost his leg,” said Winona, who also has two daughters, ages 4 and 10.
Carol Gora, a registered nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit who observed Adriano’s treatment, told hospital staff that he required several doses of antivenin.
