-
OUTDOORS
SURVIVING A RATTLESNAKE BITE:
A true story
I |
grew up on a ranch in Northern California. There were miles of uninterrupted valleys, mountains, creeks and lakes. As a boy and young man, I ventured all over that land. Wildlife was abundant. There were deer, boar, mountain lion, bobcat, raccoon, skunk, possum, squirrel, rabbit, quail, dove, turkey, coyote, trout, steelhead, and all kinds of snakes. There were gopher, garter, king, and of course the dreaded Diamondback Rattle Snake. The Diamondback is believed to be responsible for more snakebite deaths in the United States than any other snake. It wasn’t uncommon for us to come across 15 or 20 Diamondbacks a summer.
My grandfather owned most of the property where we lived. He was a man’s man. He got up before sunrise every morning and worked on the ranch until sunset. He smoked a pipe and drank beer and wine. He could cuss with the best of them. Even in his later years, he was deadly accurate with a rifle. He was a very wise man – not formally educated, but educated in the school of life from years of hard living. He was sharp as a tack and tough as nails.
His toughness was on full display one year, after his encounter with a rattlesnake. It wasn’t just any encounter. He’d killed dozens, if not hundreds of rattlesnakes over the years, but sometime in his late sixties or early seventies he had a very intimate and unexpected meeting with a Diamondback. One afternoon he walked the half mile or so out to the main road to get the mail. The mailman was running a bit late, so my grandfather sat down in the tall dry grass near the mailboxes, leaned back, put his fedora over his face to shield it from the hot sun, and caught a nap. At some point during his nap, a rattler bit him on the arm near the elbow. He returned the favor by killing the rattler and cutting of its head.
You’re probably thinking he got anxious, called out for help, cut open the wound, tried sucking the poison out, and got himself to a hospital. Not exactly. On the contrary. He really didn’t pay much attention to it at all. He got the mail, walked back to his house, and went back to work.
He didn’t even tell anyone. It wasn’t until a day or two later that anyone even found out. He was working on the ranch with his blue work shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow when someone noticed a large black and blue bruise around his elbow. He told them a brief, apathetic version of the story of getting bit. Some of the women suggested he needed to get to the hospital right way. He scoffed at the suggestion. He’d never considered it. After all, it was just a rattlesnake bite. It wasn’t like he cut off his arm with the chainsaw or anything.
To make a long story short, his arm continued to bruise and swell up for several days. But gradually, the bruising and swelling subsided, and after a few weeks, all evidence of the bite was gone.
My grandfather wasn’t the only person I knew who got bit by a rattler. One of my brothers also pulled it off, years later. He was probably in his mid to late thirties at the time. It happened on the patio outside my parent’s house. As my brother walked across the patio, he noticed a small rattler. For whatever reason, my brother opted not to get a gun or a shovel, but instead decided to take a small stick and scoot the rattler off in to the bushes and away from the house. His problem was that his stick was a little too short. He also made the mistake of thinking that his reflexes would be quick enough to get out of the way of this small rattler’s strike. His judgment was probably clouded from his usual consumption of several beers shortly before the encounter. Sure enough, while he was ushering the little guy out of the way with the stick, the rattler unexpectantly struck at him and caught him on his thumb.
Outlaw Hunter Thumbs Nose at
So-Called "Hunting Experts" and Reveals
A Simple and Proven Hunting Method to
Make This Season Your Personal Best! Learn more. Click Here!
My brother immediately dropped the stick, began sucking the poison from his thumb, called for help, and headed for the hospital just in time to get a shot of anti-venom before he lapsed into a coma. NOT!
My brothers are real men. They aren’t wimps. They don’t go to the doctor for a little thing like a snake bite. He did what any self respecting member of my very proud and tough family would do - he toughed it out. He did nothing.
He didn’t tell anyone either. It wasn’t until my parents noticed his swollen thumb and black and blue bruising up his arm, that he confessed to the rattlesnake bite. They tried to coax him to go to the doctor, but he scoffed at the suggestion. He even invoked the memory of my grandfather and his rattlesnake bite. ‘It didn’t kill grandpa’, he said. My brother works heavy construction. He didn’t even miss a day of work. He just kept on living his life.
Well, this rattler didn’t kill my brother either. However, it sure looked like death was crawling up his arm when you looked at the enormous swelling and bruising that went all the way from his thumb up to his bicep. But again, just like in my grandfather’s case, after a few weeks it all went away.
Now, I don’t recommend this course of action for everyone – o.k., not for anyone. The point is, contrary to popular belief, rattlesnake bites can often be survived even without any medical attention. However, I’d recommend that everyone get medical attention immediately after a bite – better safe than sorry.
Bass Fishing Secrets. Top highly guarded secrets of the pros exposed to the public. Almost takes the sport out of fishing. Learn more. Click Here!
These weren’t our only close encounters with Diamondbacks. It was not common, but occasionally, a rattler would manage to get inside a house. On one occasion, I was perhaps in my late teens or early twenties living at my parent’s home on the ranch. There was a door in my parent’s house that led out to a patio by a creek, which ran right beside the house. This door had a screen door on it that had a very small gap between it and the threshold, allowing just enough room for a snake or lizard to crawl underneath it. The door was often left open, and the screen door the only door in place during the hot days of spring and summer. One day, I was walking downstairs and at the last second I noticed a snake at the bottom of the stairs. My momentum was such that I couldn’t stop, so I leapt over the snake and into the room. Upon closer inspection I found that sure enough, it was a Diamondback. I got a stick and flung it little by little out the door, where I killed it with a shovel.
We generally believed in live and let live. However, we made a rare exception when it came to rattlesnakes. We lived in the area and wanted to keep it safe for our women and children and didn't believe it was wise to live side by side with the rattlesnake. Trust me. Killing Diamondbacks around our homes did not even put a dent in the snake population. On any given day, you could find rattlers all over the nearby mountains and valleys.
Killing a rattler by shovel was a common form of disposal in those days. It was very effective at removing the head with a single blow. It was imperative that the head be removed. If you simply chopped the body in half, the snake was still able to strike at you. Its survival instinct allowed it to involuntarily strike with protruding fangs, even after it was dead. Even after removing the head, you still had to be careful because the head would often have involuntary spasms where it would try and bite.
After you killed that snake, you’d dig a hole and bury it. You’d never want to just let a dead rattler lie around in the bushes. You didn’t want your dog to find it and get poisoned, and you didn’t want to attract other scavengers to the area.
Other forms of extermination involved rocks or a shotgun. Rocks were the chosen form of killing when you didn’t have access to a shovel or gun. The shotgun was effective because you didn’t have to get too close to the snake. You could kill it from a safe distance.
Years later, during the early days of my first job out of college, I recall talking to an executive about growing up on a ranch. He inquired about rattlesnakes. Being from the East coast and growing up in the city, it was one of those things that he’d heard about and feared, but had never experienced.
In any event, I shared with him the story of the rattler I killed in my house. He was beside himself. He couldn't believe it. My story so impressed him that whenever I would see him, which was perhaps once every five years or so, he would bring up the story and ask me more about it. This one story made such an impression on this man that it stuck with him throughout the rest of his professional life, and probably for the rest of his retired life.
I never really thought much about rattlers, unless someone asked me about it. It was just part of life growing up on a ranch. But to people who don’t grow up around rattlers, the mere thought of them often invokes nightmares. This executive probably shared that story with everyone he knew, and probably even people that he didn’t. He was absolutely amazed by it. I guess I should take that as a compliment.
Ultimate Fly Fishing Secrets revealed. Discover what the experts know and what they don't want you to know. Learn more. Click Here!
Most peoples’ fears of rattlers are justified. They should be feared, in order to reduce your risks are getting bit. However, rattlers aren't always as tough as the stories and irrational fears make them out to be. There’s even one enemy whom the rattler fears as much as man fears the rattler – the King Snake. God blessed the King Snake with immunity from rattlesnake poison. Therefore, the rattler avoids the black and white ringed snake whenever possible.
The King Snake was not a very aggressive snake. One of my brothers even had a pet King Snake when we were growing up. He actually kept it inside our house. Thinking back, I don’t know how my mother put up with some of the things that her four boys did, like keeping snakes in the house. And sure enough, my brother even lost the snake a time or two in the house. One time, my mother was putting away laundry and found the snake wrapped around a clothing rod in a closet. I don’t recall for sure, but this might have been the last time that the snake was allowed in the house.
We’d often heard about the legendary powers of the King Snake to withstand the venomous rattler, but had never been witness to it. However, with my brother’s pet King Snake, we soon had the chance to observe it first hand.
My cousins lived a quarter mile or so away, across an orchard and up a hill via a dirt road. We’d often traipsed back and forth between houses on this path. One night while walking to their house in the dark - I must have been about 8 or 10 at the time - I either stepped on or awfully close to a rattler who responded with its rattle as a warning that I was treading in its comfort zone. I ran up to my cousin’s house and told them of the rattler. We got some flashlights and went looking for the snake. We soon found the rattler. Someone suggested that we get my brother's King Snake and put the legend to the test. Also, my brother probably hadn’t been giving his King Snake enough nourishment anyway since he’d had it in captivity. The rattler could make a nice meal. So we trapped it with a stick, pinning its head down so it could do us no harm.
My brother came running back with his King Snake in a five gallon bucket. His King Snake must have been about three feet long - a really nice sized snake. The rattler was smaller, perhaps about two feet long with about three or four rattles and a button. We often measured rattlers by their rattles. A rattler typically grows a new rattle every time it sheds it skin, which may be three or four times a year. In general, the more rattles, the older and larger the rattlesnake. The ‘button’ was a smaller protrusion at the end of the rattles.
So my brother set the bucket down near the rattler. There must have been about seven of us by this time gathered around the snakes – boys and girls between the ages of perhaps six and sixteen. A couple of us clamped the rattler between some sticks, lifted it, and dropped it into the bucket. The rattlesnake immediately went on the attack. It repeatedly struck the King Snake all over its body.
I can appreciate that some of you city folk might think this is cruel. And it certainly may have been. But you need to also appreciate the perspective of where we were coming from at the time. We grew up on a ranch far from the city. We had tough parents who raised tough kids. We learned about life on the ranch. We had an overabundance of testosterone flying through our bodies. We hunted, we fished, we fought, we worked hard, and played even harder. It was also a different time in the late sixties and early seventies. The nation only recently was going through the beginning of its ‘sensitive man’ phase. Killing wildlife was not a capital offense in those days, like it is now. These days, if my neighbors see me killing a mole that was digging holes in my lawn, they’ll have me arrested, ball-gagged, and sodomized.
Win 97% of your sports bets. A doctor of statistics and professional sports bettor shows you how. Learn more. Click Here!
So anyway, the King Snake took the abuse from the rattler for awhile. But while the rattler was striking out at the King Snake, the King Snake had gradually got itself in position to constrict the rattler. Soon the rattler was rendered into submission and the King Snake was ready for dinner. Very carefully, the King Snake opened its mouth wide, and started swallowing the rattler. That’s right. He swallowed the entire rattler, little by little, until the rattler’s tail disappeared inside the King Snake’s mouth. The most competent deep throating woman would’ve been amazed at these swallowing skills. And so it ended another adventurous day in the life on the ranch.
A rattlesnake bite doesn’t have to be deadly. It’s possible to survive a bite without even seeking medical attention. However, you’re better off following some simple steps which will greatly reduce the risks of dying from a rattler bite.
Tips for surviving a rattlesnake bite
- Don’t go around rattlesnakes.
I know. This is like saying if you don’t want to get STDs don’t go around women. Easier said than done. You’re a man. You need to adventure outdoors, hunt, fish, ranch, farm, whatever. But, just don’t do anything stupid. Don’t go sticking your bare hand inside cracks and crevices, in wood piles, and in your nose (just had to slip that one in there). In warm seasons, be careful walking through fields. Be aware.
- Don’t panic
You just got bit by a rattler. I don’t expect you to start a celebratory dance. But I do expect you to NOT act like a sissy girl. You need to cowboy up. Suck it up. Stay calm. You don’t want to help the venom move through your system.
- Call an ambulance
You need to get to a hospital. An ambulance is your best bet. If that doesn’t work, get someone to drive you. It’s probably not a good idea to drive yourself. It’s already a bad enough day that you got bit by a freaking snake. You don’t want to also pass out, drive into a tree, and decapitate yourself. That would really suck.
- Remove any clothing or jewelry that may be constrictive
You don’t want to constrict any of your extremities, since it could exacerbate the swelling.
- Immobilize the wound area.
The idea here is that you want to put a splint or something on the wound area so that you won’t move it. The more you move it, the more the swelling, the more the venom moves through your system, the more chance you’ll die…oops did I say ‘die’. I meant the more chance you’ll get severely sick, pass out, and never regain consciousness – but not ‘die’.
- Don’t try to suck out the poison.
Don’t slice open the wound with your pocket knife and try to suck out the poison with your mouth. It may infect the wound. It’s also a good way to get snake venom in your mouth and stomach. The only time I’d recommend that you try to suck out the poison is if a very attractive large breasted woman gets bit on the tit. Even then, tell her that the correct procedure is to suck on the breast that didn’t get bit, thereby relaxing the area, preventing the venom from spreading. If she falls for that bullshit, try telling her that further relaxation benefits can be attained by her performing felatio on you.
- Don’t try and catch the snake and bring it to the emergency room.
I don’t know where this idea got started. But I’m guessing there’s been more than one fool who got bit by a snake, then got bit again trying to catch it. There’s also probably been some guy who took a snake in to the ER dropped it on the floor and got someone else bit. You don’t need the snake. Most doctors will be able to tell what kind of snake bit you, and if you live in rattlesnake country, it’s likely the only poisonous snake, so they’ll know.
Dying from a rattlesnake bite is rare. Only about four people per year in the United States die from a snake bite. You can greatly reduce your risk of dying from a rattlesnake bite by staying away from them, not panicking if you do get bit, and following the simple steps above. ©2008 www.realmanmag.com
