RIP Bill Haast- Snake Expert, Venon Researcher/Extractor/Injector- Dead at 100

G

groveChuck

U-matic Member
Bill Haast, founder of Miami Serpentarium (a tourism/research institute) was bitten by venomous snakes over 170 times (King Cobras, Mambas, Coral, Rattlesnake, Cottonmouth and many more), more often than any other known living human.

Haast injected himself weekly with a cocktail of venoms to build resistance to snake bites.

He closed the Serpentarium in 1984, and in 1990 opened Miami Serpentarium Laboratories where he extracted snake venom for medical and research use.

Haast's blood was so venom resistant, it could be transfused and actually used as antivenom for snakebite victims.

Haast died June 15, 2011 at the age of 100.

This is a story I did on Haast, then 88 years old, back in 1999. A rattlesnake strikes at the camera at one point.

 
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Wow! After all those bites, I would have thought Bill's lifespan would have been much less. 100.........just wow.

Never met the man, but he was the guy that got me intrigued in snakes.
 
Doc, it's probably not possible to say that the venom injections are responsible for Haast making it to 100, but they undoubtedly saved his life countless times.

60 years ago, he was working with a medical researcher on a treatment for polio using venom, when the Salk polio vaccine came out.

He then focused on Multiple Sclerosis, noting the symptoms were similar to those of snakebite victims. The FDA shut it down.

He was an incredibly curious man, and obviously devoted to his work to be enduring the incredible pain of snakebites, and as you point out, the person responsible for many getting into snake collecting.
 
To give you an idea how old I am - he autographed a copy of his book to me at his Serpentarium back in the 60's when my parents took the family to Florida for vacation. There was no Disneyworld, but the Everglades, Daytona Beach and Key West were cool.
 
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