An 11-year-old boy died in Medavakkam on Friday morning after he was bitten by a venomous snake on Wednesday.
Sakthivel, a class IV student at a government middle school in Jalladanpettai, was a resident of Anjaneya Nagar.
Past midnight on Wednesday, the boy woke up with a start and cried out loudly.
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His uncle Bhaskaran switched on the lights and rushed to his side to see blood trickling down his left leg.
Family members tied a cloth above the wound on the boy’s leg and rushed him to the upgraded primary health centre (PHC) in Medavakkam, only to be referred to a private hospital.
Bhaskaran was then asked to take his nephew to the Government children’s hospital in Egmore where he succumbed to injuries on Friday morning.
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Sakthivel had been living with his uncle Bhaskaran from 2004 after his father, Tirumalai, a painter, died in a road accident and his mother killed herself in grief. Sakthivel was just 18 months old then.
A case has been registered at the Pallikaranai police station. Officials at the department of public health said the Medavakkam PHC did not have the facilities or specialist doctors to treat snake bites.
Fatalities due to snake bites are not common in the city’s southern suburbs though the area abounds in common venomous snakes such as saw-scaled viper, Russell’s viper and common krait, apart from the cobra.
These species are found in large numbers in localities abutting reserve forests, an official of the forest department said.