RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Days af­ter a $5 boun­ty was an­nounced for the Gi­ant African Snail, a woman is warn­ing peo­ple to be care­ful af­ter her hus­band had to un­der­go surgery to save his hand af­ter com­ing in­to con­tact with a snail while clean­ing the yard at his home late last year.

Guardian Me­dia was told that on De­cem­ber 29, Youk­see was clean­ing his yard at Achong Trace, Tu­na­puna, when his hand ac­ci­den­tal­ly touched one of the snails.

His wife, Gwendy, said his hand be­gan itch­ing short­ly af­ter and then swelling.

“It start to swell, it lanc­ing him. I put it in warm salt wa­ter and let him dip it. I squeez­ing up his hand and then af­ter that, the thing just start to keep swelling. He couldn’t move his fin­gers, it just keep swelling and swelling.”

Gwendy said her hus­band went through a lot of pain over the past few days and was glad to have him back home with their chil­dren and their grand­chil­dren yes­ter­day. “The doc­tors had to gash it so that it wouldn’t reach his tis­sues to cause more dam­age. He is home now but we got a pa­per to take him to the health cen­tre for dress­ing every day and we are very con­cerned and want the doc­tors to keep him in close check be­cause we don’t want him to con­tract menin­gi­tis.”

Gwendy al­so had a stern warn­ing for mem­bers of the pub­lic who saw her hus­band’s sto­ry on a so­cial me­dia thread, say­ing he did not want the five dol­lars.

“This hap­pened way be­fore the boun­ty was an­nounced and peo­ple should stop jok­ing on peo­ple’s lives. This is no joke. This is se­ri­ous thing. My hus­band could have lost his hand,” she said.

“My hus­band knew how to pick up the snails be­cause he did it many times be­fore. Our area is fes­tered and it is just my hus­band ac­ci­den­tal­ly touched the snail and its slime caused the in­fec­tion,” she added.

Gwendy warned the pub­lic not to in­ter­fere with the snails.

“I feel they should have their coun­ty work­ers with their gloves and their boots and thing to pick it up. Peo­ple have to be care­ful be­cause look at what hap­pened to my hus­band. This is se­ri­ous busi­ness be­cause all you see­ing is catch it for five dol­lars and mak­ing peo­ple look like sprangers for five dol­lars. My hus­band don’t want no five dol­lars.”

Min­utes af­ter re­turn­ing home yes­ter­day, Youk­see said he was feel­ing “good.”

“I was weed­ing the yard and just so I see my hand start swelling. I touch a snail,” he re­called.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture re­cent­ly an­nounced a boun­ty sys­tem for the cap­ture and sub­mis­sion of the snails. The three-week pi­lot project start­ed on Mon­day, with a re­ward of $5 per kilo­gramme of snails.

As part of the project, a task force was re-es­tab­lished for the mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance of per­ni­cious pests and dis­eases, in­clu­sive of bat con­trol and snails.