Gabriela Bautista identified as woman killed by rattlesnake

A SoCal woman who was killed by a rattlesnake bite on a Ventura County trail has been identified as a mother and avid hiker.

Gabriela Bautista, from Moorpark, was hiking when the venomous reptile bit her on March 14 leading to an airlift rescue to Los Robles Regional Medical Center, the Thousand Oaks Acorn reports.

The 46-year-old woman had since died.

The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office reported Bautista — who was a wife, mother and passionate hiker — died on March 19 due to toxicity from rattlesnake venom.

Ventura County Fire Department’s Andrew Dowd said there were nine reported rattlesnake bites last year, and four have already been recorded since March 14 this year, KTLA reported.

One encounter in Ventura County involved a teenage girl who fell off her bike near the Wendy Trailhead in Thousand Oaks on March 20 around 7:30 p.m.

Rescue crews hiked in to reach the teen and took her to the hospital, where anti-venom likely saved her life.

In another case, a 25-year-old man from Costa Mesa was bitten while biking on a trail in Irvine on Feb. 1. He was taken to the hospital but fell into a coma, and his family later confirmed he died on March 4.

“In the last two weeks we’ve had a lot of activity, a little more than normal,” Melissa Borde, manager at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach, told KTLA. “In one day, I had three reports from the public.”

“With the warm forecast over the next couple of weeks, I think they’re going to be pretty active,” she added. “And not just rattlesnakes, you’ll see gopher snakes and other reptiles.”

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