ALONG THE WAY

Saving a Gila Monster from Drowning Takes Time, Patience, and a Lot of Sunshine

One morning last sum-mer, I found myself standing by the deep end of my parents' pool, star-ing through eight feet of cool chlorinated water at what a houseguest had moments ear-lier described in a rather shrill voice as "a huge dead lizard on the bottom of the pool." I think we were equally horrified; our guest, because the pool sudden-ly resembled a certain Black Lagoon, and she had nearly jumped in. I was more con-cerned about the creature. The lizard was a Gila monster, of course, and with the magni-fying qualities of the water, it looked nearly two feet long. In truth it was closer to 16 inches, but that's still a big lizard. The creature lay on its back, and it did indeed look very dead. But I had been swimming less than an hour earlier, with no reptilian company. Over the centuries, a variety of fabled abilities have been attributed to Gila mon-sters, and now I wondered how long one might hold its breath. Not that long. As I scooped the luckless critter from the pool bottom with a long-han-dled strainer, I thought I saw a reflexive response in one of its arms to the pressure of the passing water. But when I set the strainer on the deck, the lizard flopped out like a two-pound sack of beans, belly up. As the water dried on its rough, beady skin, I nudged its tail with a stick. Nothing. I poked it gently in the snout. Still nothing. Then I just sat there looking at it, feeling sad-der than I had in a long time, partly, I suppose, from guilt. Growing up on this patch of foothills desert in Tucson my grandfather's homestead I learned early on that the death of a Gila monster was a kind of tragedy. When I was about seven, my mother and I spotted one on our way home from the grocery store. It had been run over a few hundred feet from our driveway. My mother stopped the car, and we got out. My mother cursed the careless driver who'd hit it, and cursed the city for growing so fast. The Gila monsters were here first, after all, and there weren't many left. My mother was sentimental by nature but a scientist by training. Having finished her diatribe, she identified for me the various organs that had spilled from the ruptured belly, poking at them with a stick. Then she slid the lizard into a box so we could add it to my formaldehyde "specimen col-lection." A live Gila monster, on the other hand, was a rare treat. If my grandfather called to an-nounce he'd found a 10-incher in his carport, our whole family would trot down the road for a look. For a kid, the Gila mon-ster's flicking black tongue and lumbering stride were the next best thing to a dinosaur. Which is why, 25 years later, I felt like my parents' swim-ming pool that sine qua non of suburban desert survival -had become a tar pit, as dan-gerous to the local fauna as the most careless driver. But then the drowned Gila monster did a strange thing: It went gaack. In one explosive motion that seemed to come from deep in-side, it coughed and spit and shuddered as if it had been given an electric jolt. Then it was motionless again, eyes closed, legs splayed out worth-lessly, a single small bubble perched on one nostril. Suddenly I felt like a sol-dier trying to coax a wounded buddy back to life. I whispered encouraging words into what looked like its ear. I held its tail up and gently squeezed the water from its lungs. I fetched a stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat but found nothing. Every few minutes, though, the lizard would show signs of life: A claw would open momentar-ily, then curl closed. I called my sister, who is the medical director of the regional poison center. Her official job is to help victims of, among other things, rattlesnake and Gila monster bites, but I knew she had a secret fondness for the assailants as well. When I ex-plained the situation to her, she said, "He's probably just very, very cold hypothermic. But from what you've described, I think he'll come around. Keep him in a warm spot, and let me know what happens." What happened was this: Slowly, over the next half hour, the dead Gila monster became a live Gila monster again and a most ungrateful one at that. After a while, it began breathing regularly, but I couldn't resist giving it a little nudge now and then, hoping for a sign of more complete recovery. Eventually I got it. The Gila monster turned its head toward me, opened its mouth wide, and hissed loudly. Then it crawled lethargically to the shelter of a bush. I decided to leave it alone, and when I checked on it later, it was gone. There's been no sign of him since then, but I like to think he's still around some-where, watching his step.