The first thing Chris Gifford thought as he felt a fang sink into his skin was: I’m going to die. The second: I need to start a timer immediately.

That day in 2021, Gifford was cleaning the enclosures of the several dozen snakes he kept at his parents’ home in Raleigh, North Carolina. Nearly every snake in his possession was both venomous and native to distant corners of the world. Sharp-nosed vipers, eyelash vipers, forest cobras—every one of them beautiful, and many of them lethal.

So too was the 7-foot-long, electric-hued western green mamba that had just latched onto its enclosure’s swing door as Gifford attempted to pull it out with a hook. The snake then lunged off and bit into Gifford’s hand, unleashing a deadly neurotoxic venom into his body.

Gifford didn’t know precisely how long he had, but was certain that without help he would be dead in hours. His life would depend on a vital resource: antivenom, which was tucked securely away at the unlikeliest of places—a zoo and botanical garden hundreds of miles away.