Haast's passing reminded South Floridians of a certain age of the bygone era when entrepreneurs could set up quirky roadside attractions along Dixie Highway, US 1, to thrill both local school kids and wintering vacationers who fled the cold. Today, a McDonald's and a shopping center sit where the Serpentarium once thrilled. The attackers included cobras, a krait, green mambas, a pygmy rattlesnake, a European asp and a palm viper. No matter where we went, Miami was Bill's real home. We gave Dr.Haast large Andaconda in 1965". PARROT JUNGLE, MONKEY JUNGLE, SEAQUARIUM, ETC. Responders at Disney World searching for boy who was dragged into a lagoon by an alligator. Well, my mother went on a vacation to the Miami area. I read the part of this article where Mr. Haas had to shoot an allegator because a boy fell into the pit and the alligator ate him (is'nt that what allegators do eat anything including yu?) The boy was swimming in a river with a friend on Thursday when the incident occurred. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Snake man is master of poison and cure Bill Haast, 97, is lauded for pioneering work with snake venom By Kate Spinner Sarasota Herald-Tribune Published: Friday, July 11, 2008 at 4:30 a.m. CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Bill Haast's 97-year-old fingers, withered by scores of snake bites, are too weak to handle cobras and pit vipers anymore. A crocodile mauled and killed an 8-year-old boy near his home in Malaysia. He closed up the business in 1984, moved to Utah for a few years but returned to Florida in 1990, and settled in a Punta Gorda ranch with Nancy, his third wife, and some 400 snakes that supplied his Miami Serpentarium Laboratories. flashbackmiami.com/2013/11/26/serpentarium-2/, Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 15_5 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) GSA/219.0.457350353 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1. ''I know some people have said that about Bill, but he is one of the hardest-working, most diligent, focused individuals you'll ever meet,'' said Van Horn, 62, who worked at the Serpentarium as a young man. On November 3, a man was dragged underwater by a crocodile while swimming in the Kali River, in India's Uttara Kannada district, Newsroom Odisha reported. Its very surprising, its an extremely rare occurrence in anywhere you have alligators, but we do ask people to be mindful that we do have alligators in the water in Florida and you have to be careful, Mr Wiley said. ", By his 95th birthday, he was a bit of a recluse. I also remember hearing a story about him saving the lives of GI`s in Vietnam who had jumped from a helicopter into some poisonous snakes. We had an African Ball Python that had stopped eating, and I remember bringing it with my father to have it fed. My uncle made a point to tell me to look up this site. I lived on Homestead AFB 1960-66 and as a kid visited the Serpentarium many times. It was not that far from us and yet we were not fearful. The emergency services unit celebrated its 10th year recently at the Metro Zoo in Miami. Mr Haast came out at my parents request after thrilling us with a great show. I grew up in Hialeah,snake hunting was one of the cool things we did back in the day.We'd ride our stingrays out to milam elementary w 16 ave and catch decays ,ring necks ,yellow rats ,red rats,garter snakes,blue racers.We'd ride are bikes accross the palmetto expressway and go into the woods behind the church caught an indigo there once ,it was laying accross a tree stump that was lucky back 1971.I was 12.It was 6ft long I feed it eggs ,raw chicken breast,a big toad once .It had bright red under the chin.Mr haast told me how to get the lice off it at his snake show.I called the serpentarium every so often to ask various questions on snakes.The guy on the phone was cool and calm he'd answer your questions politely it had to be Bill to us kids he was like superman.Saw his show 5 times.Man !that indigo Mrs haast had was really pretty ,my mom was talking about that snake at big family get together in wis. last new years.We sure are lucky we grew up their! Needless to say I was quite nervous also, thinking of what might happen if that snake went through the crowd. We considered him the Patron Saint of Junkies in those days. Bill was an outstanding dedicated man. I saw the "catch and milk" demos and was fascinated. At the UM, Haast led in the testing of the serum on monkeys. I remember a Coral snake bit and killed a man digging in his yard in Whispering Pines in 1965. "It was his adopted city. I grew up near the Serpentarium , and played baseball @ Suniland Park..Many times during games , an iguana that had escaped from the serpentarium , would run across the field..As kids , we too ,sold snakes to the facility , and we managed to see the show several times a yearwe would ride our bikes to Parrot Jungle and the Serpentarium and see all kinds of rare wild animals and snakes , and birds , then fish salt or fresh water within a few miles of homegreat place to grow up in the 60's. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. He was back at it next week when we came again to fill the popcorn machines. It became bigger than I expected,'' he said. i would love to read a biography on bill haast or should we say DR.HAAST? It took the 1,800pound reptile an hour to die. Grainy WTVJ footage from 1962, now part of the Wolfson Archive, shows a fit, toothy 51-year-old Haast in a hospital recovering from his 79th snake bite his first ever by a King Cobra. Serpentarium | Flashback Miami 12-foot crocodile . We looked out and could see both Bill and Nancy peeking out from their office with a big grin! In his heyday, he was flown around the world to hospitals where people bitten by rare snakes would have died without his blood. Two swimmers taking an early morning dip in a Florida canal have earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first humans in the United States to be bitten by an American crocodile . "He's like an icon to people that know him," Cruz said. "Well my dear lad, if you should like I will write to my old friend from the war, Bill Hasst. HaastHe paid 0.25 for poisonus and 0.15 for no poisonessHe was a great man and saved thousands of lives with his snake anti-venomBitten numerous time and the only man to sruvive the bite of a Mamba, he insisted on being awake, so he could descirbe the symtoms of the snake bite,He descibed the bite as haluciations and dream world full of vibrant colors. All he did was yell ouch and that concludes the show for today. A rare survivor, he declared himself doing "very well, anxious to get back to work.". The last snake I had was a 12' burmese python that I owned a few years ago. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, population growth and increasing participation in water-related activities are resulting in more frequent alligator-human interactions. Eventually, his collection became one of the most diverse venomous snakes on the planet. His wife Nancy and I had been pleasantly talking an she was so fearful that she held my arm and squeezed hard, all the while telling me that a bite from that king cobra would likely kill Bill , because up to that point he had been bitten some 23 times , but never by a king cobra one drop of which can kill 5 men. the shows were fantastic , there was so much to explore everything was clean and the whole haast family were always charming.my family became amateur experts on exotic snakes and have read and watched everything we could over the years.but nothing ever compared to mr. haast. IE 11 is not . The incident did not end Haast's interest in venom research. Now, he believes, the long-term benefits of the shots have spared him from many of the maladies of old age. In 1982 when I was twelve I moved from England to Hollywood, Fl with my family. How lucky were we that we had this place? It was an incredible place. Haast eventually sold his family home to buy the land on South Dixie Highway where the Serpentarium would rise. BOY KILLED The attraction prospered until a tragedy in 1977. But there is no reason to visit Miami. The snake had disappeared, but I estimate that the snake, which had at least a one foot girth, was 14 feet or more. Crocodile Mauls Child to Death in Front of Horrified Parents By then Cookie, the 12-foot, 2,000-pound crocodile, had the boy in its mouth. More than twenty of those individuals recovered.[7]. Newsweek has contacted crocodile experts for comment. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. He applied the standard snake-bite treatment of the time (making crossed cuts over the fang marks and applying potassium permanganate) and then walked four miles to the camp's first aid tent, by which time his arm was swollen. Bill was sort of surprised but actually seemed happy to see me. In the early 1970s, I was carrying out a survey to document the status of certain native reptiles and amphibians of a seven-county area iof siytgh Florida. Luckily though, I see from visiting one of the links that there is an attraction to view snake milking in St. Good memories of a time long ago. Haast, the world-renowned ''Miami snakeman,'' is now 95 and living on a sprawling Punta Gorda ranch with his third wife, Nancy -- and 400 snakes that supply his venom-selling Miami Serpentarium Laboratories. I remember him extracting cobra venom too as that was part of a demonstration. Join the New Times community and help support But the FDA shut it down and banned the drug, saying PROven had not been properly tested for humans. Thanks for putting it up! I also remember Mrs. Haast coming to the schools, all the way into my sophomore year at Gables High, to talk about their work - and the high point of her talks was when she would take an indigo snake out of her purse and invite everyone to feel it. I told my mother how I'd really like to get an Indigo and she kind of shrugged it off. National television shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Johnny Carson invited him or featured him during visits to Miami. He received the key to the city.Those same hands that for decades eased venom from the world's most poisonous snakes held the key to the city of Miami on Thursday. A witness told a journalist at the Orlando Sentinel they reported a sighting of an alligator to police prior to the attack on the toddler, but Sheriff Demings said he was unaware of the report. And modern medical researchers are proving him right snake venom fractions are becoming recognized as potent medicines. When he had enough, he opened the Serpentarium in Miami in 1946. Hanley "Doc" Harding, Aurora Protection Specialists. Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings confirmed that the toddlers body was found in the water about 3.30pm, local time, after more than 15 hours of searching the Seven Seas Lagoon in Orlando, Florida. Airports to Fly Out of, Humane Society of Broward County Kicks Off VCA Walk for the Animals in Fort Lauderdale, She Was Loved': Family Speaks Out After Driver Arrested in Margate Crash That Killed Mother, Hospitalized Child, Miami-Dade Mayor, State Attorney Announce New Measures to Protect HOA Residents, From Haiti Through Liberty City to Top Federal Prosecutor in South Florida: the Unlikely Story of Markenzy Lapointe, Check Your Change! Adrian Zorzut; Published: 14:52, 10 Nov 2022; Updated: 16:08, 10 Nov 2022; Before this, the crocodile had lived for 20 years in the pit without incident. A 6-year-old boy fell into a crocodile pit and was killed. Sheppard gave injections to patients with MS. His clinic became famous and was featured on CBS's 60 Minutes. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Funny thing is, he had different ideas about that. The Serpentarium was my childrens favorate place to go on weekends, especially my son who is now grown and still holds a fasination for snakes. Is bitten by dozens of water moccasins and dies. [2] After closing the Serpentarium, he opened the Miami Serpentarium Laboratories, a facility in Punta Gorda, Florida that produced snake venom for medical and research use. Cobra Cocktails, a Mad Scientist and his Roadside Serpentarium In April 2010, a 25-year-old woman from New Jersey was killed by a . The guy that answered the phone was very calm, and told me to just leave it alone and that it would probably just be on it's way. I cant imagine what those parents are going through. Television, a book, big crowds, all helped to build up Haast's image and popularity. In 1964, a book was written about him. In 1946 Haast decided he had enough money saved to start his snake farm. Haast went to the pit with a pistol the very next day and shot the croc. Among them a zoo director from Des Moines, a local construction worker and a Venezuelan father. When we got home, she handed me a small travel bag that she had carried with her on board the airplane. Florida is considered one of the most vulnerable states in America when it comes to rising sea levels, causing the ocean to start seeping into the Everglades swampland, where alligators live. In August 2020, the remains of a 14-year-old boy were cut from a crocodile's stomach after the reptile ate him alive. I'm sorry I can never take my grandchildren there. World Crocodile attack Indonesia Crocodiles Alligator. The man who mesmerized generations of paying customers from 1947 to 1984 by extracting venom at his Miami Serpentarium as a spine-tingling South Florida attraction is dead. Bill and Nanvy were the guest attraction and Bill has with them a 12' hamadrayad, (King Cobra) which was un a 4x4x8 gkass fronted cage identical to that in which the sidewinders were displayed. He would tell us stories about going to Boy Scout Camp with this extraordinary man, Bill Hasst. An eight-year-old boy was mauled to death by a crocodile just metres from his family home in Malaysia. As a joke on him, a staff member placed a rubber snake into one of the boxes that normally held a venomous snake for the show. Did you know that Charlie Baxter aka MT GRAVES IS STILL ALIVE & is one hell of a nice guy. When I was in high school I worked at the Serpentarium and even helped out with the King Cobra Shows on the weekend. But thanks to Bill, there were not many poisonous snakes left in South Dade in the 60s-70s when I had an youngsters craving for catching reptiles. He received his first cobra bite less than a year after he started his immunization program. As far as I recall, the Cobra on the roof was the one from the Serpentarium. My dad and I still talk about this over 40 years later! Haast eventually returned home, where his mother had leased a concession stand at a lakeside resort. "Not to mention pretty damn smart. When our son was very small, he was afraid of snakes. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He was bitten for the first time at summer camp a year later, when he tried to capture a small timber rattlesnake. "Miami was in Bill's heart to the end," his widow said. However, sometime in my teens I developed a real fear of snakes, somewhat unusual since there were no poisonous varieties in my area. Miami is a hotbed for venomous snake bites because it is the entry point for almost any exotic snake, whether it is bound for a collector or a zoo in another state. My mother took my brother and I to the serpentarium in 1977. There were eyewitnesses here who certainly saw the child taken under the water, Sheriff Demings said. He said his last snakebite, Number 173 suffered in 2003 -- courtesy of a Malaysian pit viper -- was the final blow to his hands, already mangled from years of enduring the nerve- and tissue-destroying poison that snakes spew when biting. I have returned to see his show at thye Serpentarium and have watched him with his wife on the Merv Griffith show & others ( I think also the Jonny Carson Show) many years later. ''I hit him over the head, trying to get him to let go.'' I live in Sarasota now and totally enjoy the water, I think those times are responceable. Since the county revived the antivenin bank in 1998, it has saved 1,000 snake-bite victims, Seigert said. My father used to deliver popcorn to the Miami Serpentarium in the late 60's early 70's and I used to love to watch Mr. Haast handle the King Cobras. Bowker, of New York, pleaded guilty for his role in arranging for 22 snakes to be delivered to the Serpentarium in an apparent swap for the same number of American alligators. For Haast, the weekly shots paid off, helping him to survive 172 venomous snake bites. Bill Jr. eventually left, having lost interest in snakes, but not before he had been bitten four times by venomous snakes. Haast's hands suffered venom-caused tissue damage, culminating in the loss of a finger following a bite from a Malayan pit viper in 2003. Thanks for the wonderful memories and great work you have done. Haast and his teenage son, Bill Jr., began constructing snake pits, the beginning of the Serpentarium. In the 1970s, along with his friend, respected Miami physician Ben Sheppard, Haast distributed PROven, a venom-based serum. He later received commendations from President Gerald Ford and Miami Mayor Stephen Clark. Every year we took a field trip there, and every year I looked forward to it. It's a shame that everything is gone now. But the reptile managed to crawl away into a moat in the 50foot square pit, dragging the child with him. We finally found them on the bottom of my feet. It was a close call, one that underscored the county's need for an antivenin bank, Cruz said. I recently saw Mr. Hasst on wild kingdon with Jack Hanna (aired 1997 maybe). I've outlived all my friends down there.' When the show headed to Florida, Haast convinced his parents to let him go. On one trip, Dr. Haast was there, but not in his office or outside on the lawn as usual. We had an iguana that was too large to keep. I got excited thinking it was a new toy. MIAMI, Sept. 3 (UPI)A 6yearold boy tumbled into a crocodile pit at the Miami Serpentarium today and a 14 foot, 1,800pound African crocodile snapped its jaws around the child's middle and dragged him to his death in a small lagoon. Soon after opening the Serpentarium, Haast began experimenting with building up an acquired immunity to the venom of King, Indian and Cape cobras by injecting himself with gradually increasing quantities of venom he had extracted from his snakes, a practice called mithridatism. I visited the Serpentarium in the late 70s on a trip down to Key West. Authorities estimate there are between 1.3 million and 2 million alligators across the state. ''Failing at this is one of my biggest regrets,'' Haast said. They paid my mother something like $10 or more for the snake. In North Carolina, a chemist offered this salute: "Resssssssst in Peace Bill Haast.". When asked if Disney was aware of alligators on the property, Wahaler advised there were signs that said no swimming. The victim, identified as Stambuli Bamusi, along with his friends, had gone . The legacy left him immunized, enabling him to donate life-saving blood to 21 victims across the years. A second boy, 15, was bitten but escaped. Back in the 1980's, I lived in the Pepperwood S/D (about one block south of Kendell Drive, just west of Palmetto Expy). Giant Crocodile Kills and Eats 8-Year-Old Girl in Front of - Newsweek Set in the American South in the 20th century. The crocodile is suspected of eating a farmer who went missing in July in the town of Bunawan, and of killing a 12-year-old girl whose head was bitten off two years before. ''I miss the excitement of the Serpentarium,'' Haast said. Dogs, birds, skunks (if I remember correctly) and of course reptiles. Another interesting attraction there were the large Galopagas turtles he had. World; North America; Alligator drags child into lake near Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. More animals than anyone I ever knew, and of every variety. It stood almost eye level with Bill and lunged repeatedly as it advanced across the floor toward him. Haast still grows somber when retelling the story: It was a Sunday. Not to mention, people do not operate properly during tragic events.