In conversation with Amol Jadhav, B.E. (E & TC), MBA (Oper), a reformed Snake Rescuer cum Stuntman. Q1. Please tell us about your family background and what made you fall in love with reptiles especially snakes? Ans: My father is in a government job in the telecom sector, there is absolutely no connection between him…
On Sunday, 9th July 2015, my beloved junior Dr Sk Rajib called me over the phone from Dhoniyakhali Rural Hospital of Hoogly district of West Bengal at about 9.30 am. Dr Rajib wanted to draw my attention to a picture of a patient sent to me on WhatsApp (WA). Rajib informed me about a very…
The following is written with the hope that somebody who reads this has enough ‘everything’ to make life saving decisions. DARK FAIRY TALE VERSION #1 Once upon a time, not so long ago, lived a beautiful princess. Her evil stepmother made her go into the forest to collect firewood – hoping that leopards would eat…
Snakebite management through free emergency ambulance service during Golden Hour in Himachal Pradesh In India every half an hour there is death due to snakebite as the total mortality is pegged at 49,500 cases every year. Snake bites are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in the hills. The risk of snake bite…
Recently I was in discussion with a friend about snake rescue and we just decided to pen down a list of snake friends in our knowledge that have died due to snakebites. In 30 minutes we could come up with 29 names, there may be additions to this list if we start researching on a…
Loss of life can never be compensated. The latest individual to fall victim to a venomous snake bite is Chirag Roy, a promising field biologist from West Bengal. Chirag was a well-informed budding conservationist and loved the wild. He had seen seniors in the field being bitten, a few had even died. And yet when one…
India is famous the world over for its snake charmers and myths around snakes. While the common man of today’s India is peeved with this comparison, nothing much has changed in the last century in the snakebite scenario despite the fact that there was a ground-breaking invention of Anti Snake Venom to cure venomous snakebites…
I wrote this in 2011 at the request of the film production company that produced ‘One Million Snakebites,’ a BBC Natural World documentary. Wasn’t published then so here it is – If you are a young farmer in India, your chances of succumbing to snake bite are greater than anywhere else in the world. The…
I grew up in a farming community on the outskirts of a village in Yorkshire, England and spent a great deal of my childhood wandering off to catch spiders, newts, tadpoles, etc. I also had a pet tortoise called Freddo, who, like myself, often escaped to travel far and wide in search of exciting adventures.…
My lifelong love affair with snakes started with a heart-breaking incident that took place in the year 1987 when I was studying in class seven. Ganesh belonged to a very poor family from a small village in Latur district. He was one of my closest friends. He used to work in STD booths during the mornings…