From the archives: This story was last updated in September 2019.
Daycare is a place that many parents entrust to mind their kids during their busy work schedules. But as mindful as some daycare attendants might be, some dangers are easily overlooked, particularly in the playground in the Texas outdoors.At Rainbow’s Promise Daycare in Granbury, Texas, about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth, 2-year-old Kiley Cook encountered a copperhead rattlesnake hidden in the gravel in the playground area. She was bitten on the finger. Luckily, her mom, Nataly Cook, was right next door working with a different group of children at the same daycare.
When Kiley’s dad, Michael Cook, received a phone call at work with “hysterical” voices on the other end, he knew something was wrong. Finally, a member of the daycare staff was able to explain what was happening. “‘Your daughter was bitten by a snake, we’re going to the ER right now,’” the dad recounted, per WFAA.
Granbury is a small town with a population of about 10,000, so the toddler needed to be medivaced to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth to receive specialized treatment for the snakebite. As it turned out, the fact that the snake was a copperhead was a strange kind of blessing.
Herpetologist Jeff Beane explained to Live Science that because the fangs of the copperhead are short, copperhead bites are “very rarely (almost never) fatal to humans.”
While this may hold true for adult humans with fully developed immune systems, it isn’t necessarily the case for children or the elderly who are immunocompromised.
With such a small body as Kiley’s, there was no telling what could happen. “Her finger turned black, her whole hand began to balloon out,” dad Michael told WFAA.
Thankfully, the Cook Children’s Hospital is experienced in dealing with snakebites—fairly common in Texas, where healthy populations of rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, and pit vipers exist in various parts of the state. According to WFAA, the hospital treats between 17 and 25 cases of kids bitten by snakes every year.
After some scary moments for her parents, Kiley began to recover at Cook Children’s. But now, her family has to live with apprehensions about their daughter’s safety. “We’re scared to even let her go outside right now,” mom Nataly confided to WFAA.
The owner of the daycare has promised to take measures to minimize the risk of future snake encounters, including installing mesh fencing around the playground that would prevent snakes from slipping through the chain-link. While daycare workers regularly scan the playground for snakes before letting the children out, it can be difficult to spot the copperheads, which camouflage well on the multi-colored gravel.
Dad Michael advises parents and others involved in childcare to be extra careful as just one bite can be fatal. “Look for them,” he implores other parents of young children in the interview with WFAA. “They’re not hard to spot if you’re looking for them.”
Although other snakes share copperheads’ coloring, copperheads have a distinct hourglass-shaped marking that other snakes don’t have. This makes them relatively easy to identify. Getting kids to wear closed-toed shoes during times of the year when copperheads are active, especially in the spring, can also be helpful.
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