A 16-year-old Polish boy who was critically ill after being bitten by his own venomous Levantine viper has survived the ordeal. The teenager was rushed to hospital in the southern city of Krakow last Friday after being bitten while trying to give the reptile water. While he lay in intensive care, a special team was dispatched to Munich to fetch a serum unavailable in Poland. The hospital announced on Wednesday that the serum had been successful. "Today we can say with relief and satisfaction: the fight for the serum made sense. The boy is alive," the University Children's Hospital of Krakow said in a statement. "The boy is alive." The Levantine viper, which has venom several times more potent than that of the European adder, is native to southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It cannot be kept legally in Poland as its bites are often fatal. One snake breeder described keeping the animal at home as being akin to "keeping a row of unpinned grenades on your shelf.”
