Dr Nguyen Thien Tao, the snake whisperer

There are about 30,000 victims of snake bites every year, many of them cannot be saved because physicians cannot determine which kinds of venom patients suffer to cure.

According to Nguyen Trung Nguyen, head of the Poison Control Center of the Bach Mai Hospital, snake bites are the leading cause of poisoning at this center. It is extremely important to find out the type of snake, so the doctors consult experts such as Tao.

He saved the first snake bite victim when he joined a group of American filmmakers who were in Vietnam to shoot a film on the victims. He visited the Poison Control Center when a man was hospitalized in a ‘more dead than alive’ status.

Tao, after hearing the story of the victim’s mother and analyzing the patient’s status, affirmed that the man was bitten by Bungarus fasciatus which lives in bushes, ponds and lakes, and likes the smell of mortar. If someone is bitten by this species of snake, he will be paralyzed but stay conscious.

The patient then needed seroconversion or he would die. However, this kind of medicine was only available in Thailand and was expensive. Tao and other members of the group of filmmakers donated money and ordered medicine, which was brought to Vietnam by air within the day.

The young man was saved. Tao met him again some years later, when Tao was married and had his own family.

Since then, the hospital has been cooperating closely with Tao to save patients. The special expert has saved the lives of many people in the last 10 years.

Tao won an award for outstanding research and conservation of vertebrates in Asia and is a visiting professor at Kyoto University in Japan, with 45 international publications.

Finishing his study at the Biology Faculty of the Hanoi University of Natural Sciences, Tao worked for a project on wildlife conservation funded by a foreign organization. The trips in Cuc Phuong Forest and the opportunity of working with the world’s leading experts, including Prof Nicolai Orlov, gave him valuable experience and a passion for researching snakes.

Tao said there are about 200 snake species in Vietnam, 25 percent of which are poisonous. In the snake breeding season, he can smell snakes if they are near him.

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