The Man Who Milks Snakes for a Living

I'm Malcolm Grabber. I live way out in the country. I drive everywhere.

And you know what scares me? That feeling of finding myself stuck on the side of the road. But now all of us can avoid that pain by getting our vehicle the part it needs before that breakdown oh-no moment. With eBay Guaranteed Fit and over 122 million parts and accessories, you can make sure your ride stays running smoothly. For the parts and accessories that fit your vehicle, just look for the green check. Get the right parts, the right fit, and the right prices.

eBayMotors.com. That's right. Eligible items only.

Exclusions apply. Mom. Dad. Let's talk.

Before you know it, I'm out of here. I want to go to college. Or start a business.

My allowance ain't gonna cut it. The Unest app puts smart investing tools right in the palm of your hand. And with the Unest gifting link, friends and family can contribute to your child's account. You get a $25 bonus when you fund your account. See terms and conditions at Unest.co. That's Unest.co to live as our true authentic self.

Listen to Life as a Gringo on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Nathaniel Frank. Nathaniel is the CEO and founder of M-Toxins Venom Lab, which extracts high volumes of snake and scorpion venom for the production of anti-venom.

Here's Nathaniel with a story of how he got involved in his unique career. So I grew up in northeastern Wisconsin, and about six years old, I became just obsessed with reptiles. And that was because a neighbor had given me an old Peterson's field guide.

And I would flip through it and go out and try to find all the animals that were in our region that were in there. And it just started a lifelong passion for these animals. In those field guides as a child, there were pictures of a type of snake called a coral snake that absolutely fascinated me.

And I always said, one day I'm going to work with them. In about 2011, I started keeping coral snakes. And I was keeping a type of coral snake that was incredibly rare.

I was the only one keeping them in the United States at the time. And a scientist from Australia had seen that on Facebook and said, can you provide me some samples of that venom? It was really learning under fire, which I would never recommend to anyone. But a gentleman who had been producing venom since the 60s kind of took me under his wing and worked with me on safety and what I needed to do to be able to do that. And we did and it led to a very successful scientific publication.

Then the question was, what else can you provide me? So it turned into providing venom from 100 different species at one time, and it grew very quickly. And that led into providing venom to pharmaceutical companies. And that's now our main source of revenue, providing venoms for Asia, the Middle East, South America and all of Africa. The process is really quite simple.

And it's been done the same way for a very long time. You take a sterile vessel, you put a membrane over the top that the animal can bite into. And from there, we grab and restrain the animal. Now, a snake is at its most desperate situation when you're grabbing it. Typically, their first instinct is to flee. One of their last instincts is to use their venom. So we try to be gentle. And some of them are intelligent enough to know the process is happening. So a lot of them know what to expect. And we try to condition them by they give their venom, they get fed right after.

So it's almost like a reward. So they bite naturally into the vessel and release their venom. And from there, it goes into a purification process.

And then it's turned into a freeze dried powder. And that's how the scientists around the world and the pharmaceutical companies use it. m toxins venom lab opened in 2011.

And in its beginning years, it was very small. Almost no one in the community even knew it was there. But in 2016, m toxins became a high production facility and gained a lot more attention.

It's become an enormous success with the community. We're treated with the utmost level of respect by the city, and by its residents. We have a very serious level of preparedness here with the fire department with the police department, the local hospitals know us. Our state's poison control knows us.

Because if you can imagine Wisconsin poison control getting a call that says, you know, we're going to have to go to the hospital. Someone's been bitten by a black mamba or a king cobra. The first thing to do is roll your eyes and assume it's not anything like that. So one day, I was extracting from several black mambas, and I rest a finger on their nose. So I had that animal in my hand, I'm pressing on its nose, and I lifted the animal before I lifted my finger and I actually lacerated my finger with the snakes Fang. So anytime that you believe you've been snake bitten, you know, the first rule is get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

And of course, we have the antivenin on hand. But basically, I waited to see because that animal had just released its venom. Did I get any venom in my system? Am I okay? Well, then I started to lose control of my tongue and my eyelids and eyes were drooping. I was salivating. Then we got to the hospital, I received four vials of antivenin and went home that evening and had dinner with my family. But that wasn't the first accident he'd had with one of the snakes.

It's a little ironic and actually kind of funny, despite the severity of it. But in 2015, I was extracting venom from a snake from Africa called a stiletto snake. And we were doing these extractions to do a scientific study. And it was a scientific paper that proved that there's no antivenin that can be used to treat that bite. And I had my right hand placed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And I actually accidentally pushed my finger onto its Fang. And we had to take what's called the flight for life, our emergency helicopter down to a huge hospital in the southern part of the state. And of course, we knew there was nothing that could treat it. So it was all pain management for 48 hours in ICU. But it still makes me laugh the irony that we knew we couldn't be treated. And there we are with an envenomation. We have a very strict thing that we actually another venom producer used that we adopted, which is the I'm safe pilots checklist. So we go through that checklist. But before I walk in that room, I like to remind myself that we don't want it to happen again, which it will, they'll eventually be another bite.

It's just the nature of the business. But to prevent that to keep my family from having to go through it with me. This hurts a lot of people's feelings, but snakes don't have a part of the brain that shows emotion or connection. Lizards do, they become bonded to their keepers and things like that. But snakes can't do that. It's all about how tolerant is that animal being. Now, there's a lot of YouTube stars right now people that want to be like Steve Irwin and educate, but they'll take these deadly animals and they'll handle them in a very reckless way. Naturally, it's not a matter of if but when they're going to get bitten, and it's going to be ugly. One of them I'm extremely close friends with, and he has a young daughter, and every time he would post a video doing something stupid with a dangerous animal, I'd send him a picture of his daughter, because just because you have anti venom. It doesn't mean you're out of the woods, there can be lots of secondary infection, you know, you could be bitten by one of these snakes, and it turns out you had a pre existing condition you never knew about. And the next thing you know you're on dialysis or you're dead.

It's not worth it. But the general public loves it, because they believe they're seeing a bond between an animal and a person, and that it's not scientifically possible. When you get asked, what do you do for a living. And your answer is extract venom from deadly animals, you get a variety of reactions. A big one is, are you serious. That's one.

And why in the heck would you want to do that job. People are really interested in the backstory. Nathaniel allows visitors to come in and see for themselves. We're not like any other zoo. I feel that in our educational center that that sparks a whole different level of interest and investment from the kids that are watching us from behind the glass and stuff, it's just pure awe, because these kids are nose to nose with cobras and mambas and rattlesnakes. What we want to see are more people working in conservation more people studying venom to find more legitimate medicinal uses, that's kind of our goal.

Just in Africa alone, there's hundreds of thousands of bites, a year, a large number of the anti venom for Africa is donated, and I've been fortunate enough to see our anti venom save people's lives over there. It's a humbling experience to be a part of, and something that we're, we're very proud of. It's what keeps us going every day.

I think if six year old me knew that this was the path that I was going to end up on, I don't think I would have believed myself. We just try to approach it with a great deal of humility, and always remember the goal is to save people's lives, not to fill our egos or anything like that. It's just all about saving lives. And a great job on that piece by Madison, and a special thanks to Nathaniel Frank CEO of m toxins venom lab. When he was six years old, he told us he was obsessed with reptiles. He knew then that his dream will be working with these animals we learned also snakes don't like being grabbed, and also snakes don't have emotion, but I love the incentives that venom for food program, and how we ultimately train these snakes to basically do some good. And in the end, that's what it's all about saving lives if you live near snakes or you're in snake country anti venom is at every hospital, and it literally saves lives.

The story of Nathaniel Frank CEO of m toxins venom lab here on our American stories. Another week, another free pass to entertainment, check out all the shows and movies you can watch with Xfinity Flex no strings attached face the darkness in the season two premiere of yellow jackets from Showtime crack open the history vault and dig into shows like America the story of us, then watch free pics from networks like Disney story central and more with the kids, give your ear some love with hit nation Jr on I heart radio easily discover new free content each week across the best streaming apps say free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. You wouldn't settle for watching a blurry TV would you. So why settle for just okay TV sound upgrade your streaming and sound, all in one with Roku stream bar. This powerful two in one upgrade for any TV lets you stream your favorite entertainment in brilliant 4k HDR picture and hear every detail with auto speech clarity, whether you're hosting a party or just cleaning the house, turn it up and rock out with I heart radio and room filling sound. Learn more about Roku stream bar today at roku.com.

Happy streaming. I don't know if you notice about me, but I'm a car nut and I will do anything to keep my cars happy to make sure they stay running smoothly. I look for those things at eBay motors with eBay guaranteed fit when you see the green check, you know that part will fit get the right parts at the right prices. eBay motors.com let's ride eligible items only exclusions apply.