Man’s Genitals Suffer Bite By Snake In Toilet, Causes Them To Rot

You’ve heard of the 2006 movie Snakes on a Plane? Well, the latest issue of Urology Case Reports included a case of a “Snake in a Toilet.” It didn’t have actor Samuel Jackson yelling, “I have had it with these mother-bleeping snakes on this mother-bleeping plane.” However, it did have a 47-year-old man use a toilet that unbeknownst to him had a snake inside it. And spoiler alert, a venomous snake that close to your exposed privates is not a good thing.

For the case report, a team (G.H. Dijkema, J.J.Pat, and M.G. Steffens) from the Isala klinieken hospital in the Netherlands described what happened to the man while he was vacationing in a South African nature reserve. When nature called, he had to use a toilet nearby. What he didn’t realize was that nature was already in the toilet in the form of a snouted cobra (Naja annulifera). After all, checking the toilet for a cobra may not be the first thing on your mind when you’ve got to use the bathroom.

You also don’t typically expect a bathroom trip to include a snake bite to your privates. But alas that’s what happened to the man. Soon thereafter, he began feeling pain and a burning sensation in his privates. That pain radiated out to his groin and up to his abdomen and chest. That should be a groin concern that one needs urgent medical attention. However, the man had to wait three hours before a helicopter could bring him to the nearest trauma center that was 350 km away.

When the man arrived at the hospital, doctors noted that his genitals were swollen and deep purple, which as you probably know is not the normal color for genitals. He was suffering from scrotal necrosis as well. Necrosis is a medical term for tissue death. So basically his scrotum was rotting away.

This obviously was a medical emergency. There is never a situation where a doctor should tell you, “everything checks out fine, except for the fact that your scrotum is rotting away. You’re good to go now.”

The skin and underlying tissue on the man’s genitals were breaking down due to the toxins in the snouted cobra venom that can destroy cells and cause inflammation. The doctors gave the man eight doses of snake venom antiserum, tetanus prophylaxis, and antibiotics. The venom also included a toxin, metalloproteinase, that can destroy red blood cells. This may have led to the man’s kidneys failing, requiring the man to undergo dialysis.  

A week later, after doctors were able to stabilize the damage being caused to the man’s genitals, the man went to the operating room, where the surgeon removed dead skin from the area. The surgeon closed the wound on his scrotum and left a drain there. The surgeon also noted a hole in the shaft of his penis, cut away the dead tissue, and placed a vacuum device on his genitals to help the wound heal.

After nine days, the man returned home to the Netherlands, where he received further care at the Isala klinieken hospital. There, he developed a fever and received more antibiotics because bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter cloacae, were found in his wound. The man underwent further procedures on his penis. First, there was more removal of dead tissue from the shaft of his penis. Then six days later, the man returned to the operating room, where a plastic surgeon took some skin from the man’s groin and sewed it into his penis to cover the defect. After the man’s kidney function improved, he was discharged from the hospital.

A check-up a year later revealed that the man had recovered full use of and full sensation in his penis. His wounds had healed as well. He was however experiencing a pulling sensation. While you may think a pulling sensation on your penis is a good thing, it isn’t quite the case when scars are creating that sensation. Therefore, the plastic surgeon performed a Z-plasty on the scars. Now, Z-plasties have nothing to do with ziti, zebras or zeitgeist. Instead, a Z-plasty is a procedure that involves making a Z-shaped incision across a scar, raising the resulting triangular flaps of skin, and transposing them in a manner that may improve the configuration and appearance of the scar.

While snake bites are not super rare, such bites tend to occur on people’s arms and legs rather than their privates. After all, unless you are doing something very different with your life, you are more likely to expose your extremities to snakes than your privates. If you are thinking of waving your privates at a snake, that’s generally a bad idea. It’s not fun to get bitten in that area by a snake. You probably didn’t need a medical case report to tell you that. But the case report did show some of the complications that can occur.

The case report had a warning as well: “always flush the toilet before sitting down in countries notorious for their snake population!” It’s probably a good idea to flush a toilet anywhere before you use one, especially if you see any type of long object in it already. Additionally, whenever you ask, “where’s the bathroom,” consider following up by inquiring, “do you happen to keep any snakes in the toilet?” You want to make sure that the only hissing sound coming from a toilet is generated by water alone.