Three-year-old girl bitten by rattlesnake while retrieving Amazon package

A three-year-old girl landed in the intensive care unit earlier this month after a rattlesnake bit her while she was trying to grab an Amazon package.

Addy, the young girl, ran out with her mother on 13 July to pick up a package dropped over the gate to their home in Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles.

“Tragically, a southern pacific rattlesnake was hiding under the brown padded envelope and bit Addy’s left hand,” her father, Manny Barajas, wrote in a fundraising campaign note.

Addy’s mother, Lynn, took the girl to meet first responders at a nearby grocery store parking lot, who took her to hospital and administered a dose of anti-venom. The hospital then transferred her to another facility with a pediatric ICU, where she received two more doses of anti-venom, according to Barajas.

The treatment appears to have worked.

“She’s doing great now,” Barajas told KTLA, adding: “She’s still bruised on her left hand where she was bitten. Her spirits are high, her demeanor is great, but she keeps asking why she was bitten by a snake.”

Rattlesnake bites have become more common in California this year, with heatwaves since March increasing snake activity. Three people have died this year, which is about two more than usual. The California poison control system has received reports of 277 bites so far this year, according to the Los Angeles Times – almost as many as it normally received in an entire year.

Rattlesnakes typically avoid humans, but will bite when they feel threatened, cornered or surprised.

California poison control and the Los Angeles county fire department did not immediately return requests for comment.