Colorado man dies after bite from Gila monster he illegally kept as a pet

cnn
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A Colorado man died after being bitten by a large venomous lizard, called a Gila monster, that he illegally kept as a pet, according to Lakewood city officials.

Christopher Ward, 34, owned two of the reptiles and became ill after being bitten on the hand by one of the animals, a Lakewood Police Department incident report shows. Lakewood is a suburb of Denver.

Ward’s girlfriend called 911 just before midnight on Feb. 12 after entering the room where the reptiles were kept and discovering that one of them had “latched on to Ward’s hand,” the officer wrote in the report. LPD Animal Control Officer Leesha Crookston. Ward immediately began showing symptoms, vomiting several times before passing out and stopping breathing, the report said.

Ward’s girlfriend told Crookston she didn’t know exactly what caused the bite because she was in a different room at the time, but she said she heard Ward say something. that “It didn’t sound good,” according to the report.

Ward was taken to a local hospital, where he was placed on life support and was later “declared brain dead,” according to the report. He died on February 16, LPD public information officer John Romero told CNN on Wednesday. The cause of death has not been revealed.

Crookston told Ward’s girlfriend that it is illegal to possess Gila monsters in the city of Lakewood, according to the report. The lizards were removed from Ward’s home last week by Crookston and officials from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Department of Natural Resources.

According to the report, authorities plan to relocate the lizards to an animal park in South Dakota. Twenty-six spiders of different species that Ward kept in terrariums were also removed from the house.

Ward’s girlfriend says the lizard that bit Ward was named Winston and that Ward bought it at a reptile show in Denver in October, when the reptile was about a year old, according to the report. The second Gila monster, named Potato, was purchased as a baby from a breeder in Arizona in November.

Gila monsters are the largest lizards in the United States and can measure up to about 22 inches long, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. The reptiles live primarily in northern Mexico and several southwestern U.S. states, including Arizona, California, and New Mexico.

A Gila monster’s venom is as toxic as that of a Western rattlesnake, the Smithsonian says. Although reptiles can hold their bite for more than 10 minutes, when they do so they produce a “relatively small amount of venom.”

“There is no antidote for Gila monster bites,” says the San Diego Zoo saysnoting that a Gila monster bite is painful but rarely causes death.

“The bite of a Gila monster is very strong and the lizard may not release its grip for several seconds,” says the San Diego Zoo. “You can even chew to get the poison deeper into the wound.”

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office has not responded to a CNN request for comment on Ward’s cause of death and whether he died from the reptile’s venom.