Snake Bite Talk

[mycrofft]

Not a crew captain, it was an "emergency" call. I do those.

They were playing handball and he had taken off his shoes.

HAHA!! I forgot jellyfish. Got a bit from a little torn up one off El Segundo, CA, body surfing. Usually we would just quickly scrub off these bits with sand (when the surf tore them up) but this one went were I couldn't scrub in public. End of body surfing that day.

 

[Jon]

Snake bite treatment? Don't cut the bite site. Don't use suction. Don't use a tourniquet.

The Boy Scout First Aid guides recommend a "constricting bandage, but NOT a tourniquet"

 

[mycrofft]

How many species of rattlers are there in the USA?

And are there species in the US which have NO listed fatalities?

 

[Sasha]

They were playing handball and he had taken off his shoes.

HAHA!! I forgot jellyfish. Got a bit from a little torn up one off El Segundo, CA, body surfing. Usually we would just quickly scrub off these bits with sand (when the surf tore them up) but this one went were I couldn't scrub in public. End of body surfing that day.

I stepped on a jellyfish on shore a couple years ago. BLended in with the sand but their stingers still stung after death. Stuck to the pool the rest of the visit.

Anyone have man'o'wars?

 

[mycrofft]

I saw one once.

A real fluke, off California (!). Initially I took it for a produce bag at fifty yards and from a pier.

 

[mycrofft]

Time for a refresher, rattler bumper crop this year

Three clues:
1. Cat brings in multiple rodents a week for owner to prep and serve to it.
2. Many rodents and rodent predators seen as roadkill (constrictor snakes, barn owls, cats, maybe coyotes) or perched on lookouts like light stancions and dead trees. Barn owls are notorious for going after roadkill rodents at night, their remains are buffy and white with some spotted brown on white feathers. You might see them alive on the road or on the shoulder, too, after dark.
3. You see the rattlers (duh-OH).

SO, what is the latest and greatest? I have been doing some reading, and I am not seeing U.S. resources willing to make different recommendations for wilderness or rural bites versus urban or suburban bites. Constrictions are out. Cold is out. Basically, call 911, keep calm (yeah right), scene safety, and get your medical history and insurance info handy in case you pass out first. We locally only have numerous but geographically concentrated Northern Pacific Rattlers.

Can our comrades down under give us their expertise too, since we Amurricans seem to a relatively limited number of families of well-known poisonous snakes*, (albeit there are or were about 13 varieties of rattlers at one time).


* We have rear fanged snakes like gopher snakes, lyre snakes, cat eye snakes, etc., who are mostly very secretive and rural and have few or no recorded fatalities.

 

[vamike]

Here in these hills we have rattlers and copperheads. I grew up in eastern part of the state and we had cotton mouths and copperheads. All over the state we have black widows and brown recluses. My father was bit by a recluse a few years back with no serious reaction. My nephew was bitten a couple years before that on his finger and it required several surgeries of splitting the skin on his finger and scraping the insides clean. Lots of antibiotics later and he still has the finger. Nasty things those brown recluses.

 

[usafmedic45]

We have rear fanged snakes like gopher snakes, lyre snakes, cat eye snakes, etc., who are mostly very secretive and rural and have few or no recorded fatalities.

That would be because they are not venomous. It's hard to have a fatality unless you're dealing with a very venomous snake (even rattlesnake bites are seldom fatal; they make the patient wish they were dead, but it seldom is irreversibly fatal) or one big enough to asphyxiate a person. Also keep in mind that even with venomous species, approximately 50% of all bites are dry bites.

 

[CANMAN]

Had a lady in Baltimore in the last two years that got bit by a Cobra. She told police she saw a white plastic shopping bag moving under her car in a Supermarket parking lot and when she went to pick it up a cobra was in the bag and bit her :rofl: Turns out her and her husband collected exotic snakes without the proper permits and she got bit by one of her own snakes. She was transfered to the hospital I worked at from a community hospital.

Tracking down anti-venom was the issue. The Baltimore Zoo had anti-venom but it was expired. After alot of phonecalls some was located in PA somewhere. Due to weather we were unable to fly to retrieve it so a PA State Trooper brought it to a DE State Trooper and we met them at the State line in one of the special ops cars to bring it back.

She had a decent outcome as far as I know. Got bit in the hand and did have some tissue necrosis. They had the snake in the ED which was pretty cool to see. It was relatively small/younger snake, black and yellow. Used to have a cool pic of it on my old phone.

 

[CANMAN]

I think Miami also had a fire department based unit called "Venom 1" who's sole duty is to respond to areas all over the state and provide anti-venom. Apparently the FL ports have the highest imports of exotic animals.

 

[zmedic]

Can our comrades down under give us their expertise too, since we Amurricans seem to a relatively limited number of families of well-known poisonous snakes*, (albeit there are or were about 13 varieties of rattlers at one time).

Keep in mind that many of the venomous snakes in Australia are neurotoxic snakes, so they use constrictor bands. In the US almost all snake bites from local snakes are from hemotoxic snakes, so no ace wraps used. (The only native neurotoxic snake to north america is the coral snake, which you have to basically pick up and poke to get bitten, usually on the hand or finger.)

 

[Aussie_Medic_Girl]

Can our comrades down under give us their expertise too, since we Amurricans seem to a relatively limited number of families of well-known poisonous snakes*, (albeit there are or were about 13 varieties of rattlers at one time).


* We have rear fanged snakes like gopher snakes, lyre snakes, cat eye snakes, etc., who are mostly very secretive and rural and have few or no recorded fatalities.

I don't know about my expertise but I can give you a bit of a view of snakes in Oz. Here the standard treatment is to cover the bite with a sterile pad, compression bandage from the bite upwards towards the body and then once that bandage is exhausted you start another one at the most distal end of the limb and move all the way to the top of the limb using as many bandages as required. We then mark the bandage for where the bite mark is and the time it was applied. The limb is then immobilised with a splint and the pt tx to hospital. I understand that in America you don't compression bandage as that causes further necrosis???

Now I personally haven't actually attended someone who has been bitten by a snake. I've been to one person who stood on a snake but wasn't sure if it bit her as she couldn't see underneath her foot and I also went to a kid who was playing in the floodwaters and was bitten by "something" (inspection showed a very minute midgie bite). However, I was unloading at hospital one day when a 4wd pulled up and a women jumped out carrying a 3yo and screaming that he'd been bitten by a brown snake. We rushed them inside and when I went outside to let grandma in she was kindly waving a ~30cm brown snake around. Now while I don't know all the details of the case I do know that the kid had problems with his clotting that were bad enough the hospital gave anti-venom. Just goes to show how a small snake can still be just as dangerous.

So...other than that, I've just driven over a 6ft brown snake in the ambulance

 

[mycrofft]

Rear fanged American snakes, and neurotoxic North American rattler

Rear-fanged snakes have venom "considered not dangerous to humans" (unless you are allergic). You practically have to pry open their mouths and jam in a finger to be envenomated. That's after you go hunt one down, except for some more familiar coluber sp., the hognosed snake being a somewhat common pet snake. Here's a remarkable h34r: pictoral of a hognosed snake bite tolerated for 3 to 5 minutes.
http://www.herpnet.net/bite/

We have a neurotoxic rattler (pit viper, crotalidae) known as the Mojave (sic "Mohave") Rattlesnake, aka "Mohave Green Rattler".
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/771586-overview#a0104

American Association of Family Physicians' 2002 article states:

"Each year, approximately 8,000 venomous snakebites occur in the United States.1,2 Between 1960 and 1990, no more than 12 fatalities from snake venom poisoning were reported annually". http://www.aafp.org/afp/2002/0401/p1367.html

 

[Hockey]

Any snake is a dead snake to me

 

[jsliu]

I live in Moreno Valley, CA in Riverside County and just on the other side of my backyard fence are some mountains so I've seen a lot of rattlesnakes and king snakes growing up. King snakes aren't poisonous, in fact, they eat rattlesnakes, so I welcome them, but rattlers are a different story.

No one in my family has been bitten but four years ago, my dog was bitten by a rattlesnake on his snout and I had to rush him to the animal ER. Luckily, he survived but his face got really bloated from the venom so he had surgery to get all the venom out. He still chases after them but he's smarter about getting bit again and each year, I also take him to the vet for the rattlesnake booster.

 

[LucidResq]

A canyon/public park (at relatively low elevation for CO) in the jurisdiction my boyfriend volunteers for has had an odd rash of rattler bites this year. At least two dogs have died and I believe they've transported 4-5 patients- those are just the ones him and I have heard of. I don't believe any of them were in bad shape but I don't know what their clinical course was after transport. I'm almost positive all of them survived without serious consequences though (aside from their hospital bill).

 

[medichopeful]

This reminds me. Did you ever catch the show "Venom ER" when it was on?

 

[emtchick171]

Have seen some man-o-wars on the coast, not a frequent occurrence but they're definitely there! Jellyfish are common, the best thing we have found for a jellyfish sting is ammonia, or vinegar...although it smells bad, it will neutralize the jelly sting and make it stop hurting.

Snakes in our area: timber rattler, cottonmouth/water moccasin...for the most poisonous. Then there's the common chicken snakes, and garden snakes that you see often but are harmless.

 

[mycrofft]

"Venom ER" was in my old childhood stomping grounds, high Mojave/San Berdoo County

Long darned chopper rides.

We are seeing rattlers in suburban Sacramento where few or none have been seen recent years. It has been a bumper crop year for rodents two years running, and that's what the rattlers eat; the wild grass/brush is high, that';s where they hunt; the river's are running high, displacing them from their riparian environment.

 

[lifesavingsob]

Interested in any Snake Bite stories out there. I know that actual deaths from snake bites (at least in the USA) are rare, but strikes are not. My county sees quite a few bites every year and snakes have always fascinated me.

What venomous snakes in your area?

Any interesting stories?

What treatments are you doing in your area?

Any other interesting venomous creature stories in your area?

I ate a rattlesnake one time... we was drunk too, rolled up on him on our four-wheeler, I was all "run over that :censored: and see what happens"... he was all wiggling and he tried to bite me I said "no snake!" Then I beat him in the head with my machete... said "I'm about to eat you with some mayonaise you snake"...