Owner of escaped Raleigh cobra was bitten by venomous pet mamba, hospitalized in March

The 21-year-old owner of an escaped cobra suffered a near-fatal bite from a green mamba snake he owns in March — an earlier run-in with his extensive collection of venomous snakes.

On a Facebook page called The Venom Interviews, Christopher Gifford identifies himself as the victim in a March mamba bite case that required antivenom from a zoo in South Carolina. The case received extensive news coverage in Raleigh at the time, though Gifford’s name wasn’t released.

Gifford said his recovery required four vials of antivenom and a 42-hour hospital stay, but that he planned to continue to care for deadly snakes despite making mistakes — notably, he said, failing to keep emergency contacts in case of a bite.

“In all honesty,” he wrote, “I shouldn’t have lived and I thank God that I’m here today.”

Raleigh police blocked off Chamonix Place on Tuesday in northwest Raleigh, where Gifford lives with his parents, after a venomous zebra cobra escaped from the house.

Raleigh police reported Wednesday night that the snake had been “located and safely removed.”

Video of cobra in yard

Animal control officers stayed on the scene most of the day, leaving the scene with a large red bucket.

The police presence to the house drew attention to Gifford’s social media accounts, especially TikTok, which feature more than a year of videos documenting his extensive collection.

In many of the videos, Gifford appears in a yard with an uncaged cobra, filming it crawling through the grass.

“She is so unhappy right now,” he says in a video, as the cobra hisses and raises its hood. “Gotta love having a cobra. It’s sick. I mean, how often can you say that I get to play with my cobra? Every day.”

In another, he allows the snake to crawl out of a large garbage can.

“We’re gonna let her come out,” he says. “’Cause she’s not hurting anybody. OK, let’s get her to hood up. You got her, Dad? Oh, she’s moving. There we go. There’s that beautiful cobra.”

North Carolina law allows residents to keep exotic, venomous pets, but extensive rules govern their care.

Article 55 says snakes must be kept in a sturdy, secure enclosure designed to be escape-proof, bite-proof, and having an operable lock. Each enclosure must be clearly and visibly labeled “Venomous Reptile Inside,” with the scientific name, common name, appropriate antivenom and owner’s identifying information noted on the container, the law says. A written bite protocol with emergency contact information, local animal control office, the name and location of suitable antivenom, first aid procedures, treatment guidelines and an escape recovery plan must be within sight of permanent housing.

How the bite happened

In his Facebook post, Gifford said the mamba bit him while he was trying to clean its cage, and its midsection wrapped around the door handle.

After securing the snake, he wrote, he ran upstairs to tell his parents he had been bitten, then called poison control and 911 on his way to the emergency room. In the post, he said calling 911 was a mistake because it alerted news media, though Gifford was not identified as the victim.

Not keeping emergency contacts, he said, put huge stress on the people trying to save his life.

“In keeping for 4 years,” he wrote, “I had never once reached out to my local hospital, toxicologists or other keepers to have an extensive emergency call list in the situation I was in. I had no reason to try and hide or not reach out to animal control because I was following all possible guidelines.

“If by chance I had passed away I’m putting so many other people at risk in the sense that I’m not gonna be able to have a say in where those animals go, and in a lot of situations they would become euthanized which is the last thing anyone could hope for.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 10:32 AM with the headline "Owner of escaped Raleigh cobra was bitten by venomous pet mamba, hospitalized in March."