By Julie Hays and Gray News staff
Published: May. 20, 2024 at 12:55 PM CDT|Updated: 16 hours ago
WOODWAY, Texas (KWTX/Gray News) - A 9-year-old Texas girl is recovering after a venomous copperhead snake bit her on a knuckle of her right hand two weeks ago in her backyard.
Eden Sibley, a third grader at Live Oak Classical School in Waco, spent three days in the hospital and was given four anti-venom treatments.
It happened as Eden was collecting snails just before noon on a Sunday with mother Suzanne Sibley in her flowerbed near the family’s pool. Eden reached down to get a snail and never saw the foot and a half long snake lurking in some nearby monkey grass.
“I didn’t even see it,” Eden said. “I didn’t even see it because the snake was like brownish-reddish, so it blended into the dirt, and there was tall grass all around, and so the snake just jumped at me.”
Suzanne Sibley had looked away for a moment when the bite happened. Eden’s father, Jonathan Sibley, was at church while Eden’s two brothers, Jack, 15, and Knox, 13, were home and heard the commotion.
“She bent down and that’s when I heard this awful, awful scream that I’ve never heard, and she’s yelling, ‘A snake just got me! A snake just got me!’” Suzanne Sibley said.
Eden said the pain was immediate and intense.
“It took me a couple of seconds to know that I got bitten by a snake,” she said. “My hand immediately felt like fire, like my whole body felt like it was on fire, like 50 bullets going through my hand.”
Suzanne put Eden in the car to rush her to the hospital but wasn’t sure where to go.
A neighbor who heard Eden’s bloodcurdling scream came outside and recommended Baylor Scott and White Hospital in Waco where she knew they kept antivenom on hand.
“She knew this was a hospital run just by the screaming,” Suzanne Sibley said.
She said Eden’s hand was swelling quickly.
“She’s screaming, ‘I’m going to die!’ and I’m like, ‘You’re not going to die!’ And she’s like, ‘Have you ever known anyone who’s been bitten by a poisonous snake?’ And I’m like, ‘No, but we’re going to get this figured out,’” Suzanne Sibley said.
Knox stayed behind and killed the snake, which allowed the family to show medical staff pictures at the hospital.
When Eden arrived at the emergency room, doctors wasted no time administering antivenom.
Standard protocol is to wait and observe the patient’s reaction, but Eden’s was evident.
Baylor Scott and White emergency room physician Dr. Randy Hartman said snake bites tend to be tougher on children.
“They’re smaller, they have less blood volume, their immune systems are more reactive and the chance of that body reacting to the venom is just higher,” Hartman said.
Eden was then transferred to McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple a few hours later, where three more antivenom treatments were eventually administered.
By this time, Jonathan Sibley had joined the family. He said watching his daughter in so much pain was tough.
“By the time I got there, her hand was almost the size of my hand,” Jonathan said. “It was swollen up really big. That was the hardest part, just watching her, the pain. You kind of knew that snakes are bad, and snake bites from copperheads are bad, but I just didn’t know how nasty and painful it really is, how much damage it can do.”
Eden’s most noticeable response was a large bubble that appeared on her finger.
Suzanne Sibley said doctors told her while hard to see, the bubble was a natural defense against infection.
“They didn’t want it popped because it can cause more infection,” Suzanne said. " It’s like a natural Band-Aid.”
Eden was discharged from McLane Children’s Hospital Tuesday and spent the rest of the week home from school recovering.
She admits she’s scared to go outside right now.
“I haven’t been going outside because every time I go outside my heart just starts racing,” Eden said.
The 9-year-old has a good prognosis, but her recovery isn’t over yet.
“They’re now worried about her knuckle, her finger not being able to be straight,” Suzanne Sibley said. “Just because where it was bitten, she’ll need to do physical therapy or surgery.”
Suzanne and Jonathan Sibley said they’re thankful to both hospitals for the good care they received in such a scary time.
They say they don’t have much advice on preventing snake bites, but they do encourage families to have a plan if the unlikely happens.
“Get to the hospital as soon as possible,” Jonathan Sibley said. “We just had a lot of prayers answered.”
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