Diary of a snake bite victim

[LittleLebowski]

Herpetologist Karl Schmidt in 1957 meticulously recorded his own death after being bitten by a boomslang.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEyjF2bNQOA

[LittleLebowski]

Gnarly venom injecting back fanged snake.

https://i.imgur.com/IfDrSUu.jpg

[AKDoug]

And that right there is why I live in Alaska. Fuck snakes. I'll take brown bears in my yard any day.

[Borderland]

I lived with lots of snakes in my youth. I was actually bit one time but I never identified the snake that bit me on the hand as I was walking down a trail in a cut bank to a creek bottom. Fortunately it wasn't poisonous but I never knew that for a about an hour. I went back to find the snake and it was gone. I knew a kid in Columbus NM that lost 2 fingers to a bite from a diamond back. You may not die but the poison will kill tissues and muscle.

No poisonous snakes where I live now but it took me a long time to drop my guard once I moved here. I had some seriously close encounters with poisonous snakes when I lived and worked in AZ. Just about everyone I worked with on a survey crew carried a 22 revolver for poisonous snakes. We looked like a bunch of desperados when we worked in the boonies.

[Joe in PNG]

Grew up in the piney woods of Central Florida, where diamondbacks abounded, and my grandpop had a house on the Harris chain of lakes, where cottonmouths were common.

One did keep an eye out for all sorts of snakes, even if one wasn't really thinking about it. I caught quite a few different kids as a kid, and even kept a corn snake as a pet for a while.

[Totem Polar]

F that. Where is Rikki Tikki Tavi when you need him?

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1420095197i/13171105.gif

[Half Moon]

F that. Where is Rikki Tikki Tavi when you need him?

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1420095197i/13171105.gif


https://americanliterature.com/author/rudyard-kipling/short-story/rikki-tikki-tavi:

"Nag, come up and dance with death!"
Eye to eye and head to head,
(Keep the measure, Nag.)
This shall end when one is dead;

71301

[RevolverRob]

My office at the museum was formerly part of KP Schmidt's lab space. No one is certain if it was there or another room a bit farther down the hall (where his main office was) that he was bitten.

Classic story in the herpetologist world. Really interesting and important biologist during his time and still quite relevant today.

[Doc_Glock]

Snake bites are no joke and kill around 100,000 people a year.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/snakebite-envenoming

[Robinson]

We have lots of Copperheads around here -- their bite isn't likely to kill an adult human but can make you sick and are dangerous to kids. A couple of years ago at our previous house NE of Atlanta I found a juvenile Eastern Diamondback rattler in our front yard. They aren't supposed to live that far North but there it was sure as heck.

[Clusterfrack]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2001/09/venomous-bite-kills-snake-researcher

Venomous Bite Kills Snake Researcher

Sep. 27, 2001
A field expedition to a remote region of Myanmar in Southeast Asia ended in tragedy earlier this month, when a prominent snake expert succumbed to a poisonous snakebite. Joseph Slowinski, 38, is believed to be the first academic herpetologist killed by a snakebite in the field, though at least two others have died of bites from laboratory animals.

[Totem Polar]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2001/09/venomous-bite-kills-snake-researcher

Venomous Bite Kills Snake Researcher

Sep. 27, 2001
A field expedition to a remote region of Myanmar in Southeast Asia ended in tragedy earlier this month, when a prominent snake expert succumbed to a poisonous snakebite. Joseph Slowinski, 38, is believed to be the first academic herpetologist killed by a snakebite in the field, though at least two others have died of bites from laboratory animals.

Cool site in that link.

At least he went out the way he lived: discovering new species:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210406084037.htm

April 6, 2021
Source:
Pensoft Publishers
Summary:
The venomous krait that caused the death of famous herpetologist Joseph B. Slowinski turns out to be new to science, according to recent research. The new species, Bungarus suzhenae, was named after the character Bai Su Zhen from the Chinese myth the Legend of White Snake.

[JRB]

I lived with lots of snakes in my youth. I was actually bit one time but I never identified the snake that bit me on the hand as I was walking down a trail in a cut bank to a creek bottom. Fortunately it wasn't poisonous but I never knew that for a about an hour. I went back to find the snake and it was gone. I knew a kid in Columbus NM that lost 2 fingers to a bite from a diamond back. You may not die but the poison will kill tissues and muscle.

No poisonous snakes where I live now but it took me a long time to drop my guard once I moved here. I had some seriously close encounters with poisonous snakes when I lived and worked in AZ. Just about everyone I worked with on a survey crew carried a 22 revolver for poisonous snakes. We looked like a bunch of desperados when we worked in the boonies.

A tow truck driver I know in southern NM made the best case I've ever heard for a Taurus Judge - He tows at night, nighttime brings rattlesnakes out onto the nice warm pavement, and .410 works great on rattlers. Being a big revolver it doesn't really raise too many eyebrows down there, either.

[11B10]

Herpetologist Karl Schmidt in 1957 meticulously recorded his own death after being bitten by a boomslang.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEyjF2bNQOA







LL....there's a huge part of me that really wanted to click "LIKE," but when I realized I won't be able to unsee the images of that boomslang's fangs - especially when I close my eyes tonight....well.

To quote a certain movie character: "Why is it always snakes?"

[Borderland]

A tow truck driver I know in southern NM made the best case I've ever heard for a Taurus Judge - He tows at night, nighttime brings rattlesnakes out onto the nice warm pavement, and .410 works great on rattlers. Being a big revolver it doesn't really raise too many eyebrows down there, either.

I would have liked one of those when I worked down there. :D

[Duelist]

A tow truck driver I know in southern NM made the best case I've ever heard for a Taurus Judge - He tows at night, nighttime brings rattlesnakes out onto the nice warm pavement, and .410 works great on rattlers. Being a big revolver it doesn't really raise too many eyebrows down there, either.

Pretty sure a regular .38 or .44 or .45 loaded with snake shot works pretty well on snakes at distances where they are actually problems.

[Clusterfrack]

https://i.imgur.com/12BMMgk.gif

[JRB]

Pretty sure a regular .38 or .44 or .45 loaded with snake shot works pretty well on snakes at distances where they are actually problems.

Funny you'd mention that. I asked him the same thing since I know he owns at least one old N-frame. He chose the Polymer Judge because it was lighter, ugly, and under $300 so he didn't care if it got scraped or beat up while he was climbing under cars/trucks etc and generally getting caked in southern NM dirt. He'd hose it out with brake cleaner and compressed air and applied some rem oil in some areas when the DA pull got too heavy on a weekly-ish function check. Not a fan of the gun's marketed purpose, but for that purpose it did make sense to me.

If you want to be annoyed by the existence of a Judge Poly, I can tell you the story about a PFC I had as a squad leader.
This PFC went to a local gun store and traded in his Grandpa's 2nd gen Colt Detective Special complete with vintage leather for a *GREEN* Taurus Judge Poly with some sausage sack holster and a few boxes of special .410 gimmicky 'Judge/Governor optimized' defensive loads. Yes, I called the gun store and tried to buy the Colt from them and had a nice convo with the dude, who said this PFC couldn't be talked out of it and they weren't stupid enough to say no to a Colt like that, and the owner of the store chose to keep it for his personal collection. Can't blame them, given the whole situation.

By the time this PFC was a 24 year old SPC, he'd been married and divorced twice, and both ex-wives had cheated on him and claimed children from other men were genetically his. So simple to say that this dude didn't make great decisions.

[Duelist]

Funny you'd mention that. I asked him the same thing since I know he owns at least one old N-frame. He chose the Polymer Judge because it was lighter, ugly, and under $300 so he didn't care if it got scraped or beat up while he was climbing under cars/trucks etc and generally getting caked in southern NM dirt. He'd hose it out with brake cleaner and compressed air and applied some rem oil in some areas when the DA pull got too heavy on a weekly-ish function check. Not a fan of the gun's marketed purpose, but for that purpose it did make sense to me.

If you want to be annoyed by the existence of a Judge Poly, I can tell you the story about a PFC I had as a squad leader.
This PFC went to a local gun store and traded in his Grandpa's 2nd gen Colt Detective Special complete with vintage leather for a *GREEN* Taurus Judge Poly with some sausage sack holster and a few boxes of special .410 gimmicky 'Judge/Governor optimized' defensive loads. Yes, I called the gun store and tried to buy the Colt from them and had a nice convo with the dude, who said this PFC couldn't be talked out of it and they weren't stupid enough to say no to a Colt like that, and the owner of the store chose to keep it for his personal collection. Can't blame them, given the whole situation.

By the time this PFC was a 24 year old SPC, he'd been married and divorced twice, and both ex-wives had cheated on him and claimed children from other men were genetically his. So simple to say that this dude didn't make great decisions.

Nah, I’m not annoyed by the existence of particular guns. Your PFC would have annoyed me greatly, and not just for the idiotic trade he made for the Judge.

Your truck driver acquaintance probably does have the most legit use for one I’ve ever heard of, but I think even a polymer S&W “Bodyguard” or Charter Bulldog would do the same thing and be less bulky to crawl around cars with.

[JRB]

Nah, I’m not annoyed by the existence of particular guns. Your PFC would have annoyed me greatly, and not just for the idiotic trade he made for the Judge.

Your truck driver acquaintance probably does have the most legit use for one I’ve ever heard of, but I think even a polymer S&W “Bodyguard” or Charter Bulldog would do the same thing and be less bulky to crawl around cars with.

Man, I'm pretty sure around 1/3 of my grey hair came from being in charge of that kid. He was the embodiment of 'why the hell do they really need a warning label here?' Him. They put it there for him, not because he'd ever read it, but so that some lawyer couldn't make a nice 30% off of that warning label being absent.

[Coyotesfan97]

I have to worry about Western Diamondbacks around my house and land. I had a smaller dog bit by one and I killed one by my working dogs kennel one night. Fortunately I had put up metal mesh around the base of the kennel runs so he couldn’t get inside. A shovel worked just fine.

I take care walking around my yard. You get used to looking in bushes before you walk by them. I know one lady who was bitten by a rattler in her garage when she reached into some shelving.

They’re around but you just don’t see them.


https://youtu.be/tANq7ffBHz0

I think this was the first Steve Irwin video I ever watched. There’s some crazy work here.

[GJM]

SC copperhead bite:

https://news.yahoo.com/hilton-head-woman-bitten-3-170216898.html

Rattler ended up in the stats shack at a match in April, and a person took it out with a .38 and snake shot.

[RevolverRob]

Nah, I’m not annoyed by the existence of particular guns. Your PFC would have annoyed me greatly, and not just for the idiotic trade he made for the Judge.

Your truck driver acquaintance probably does have the most legit use for one I’ve ever heard of, but I think even a polymer S&W “Bodyguard” or Charter Bulldog would do the same thing and be less bulky to crawl around cars with.

True, but these things actually are quite compact and at about 25-ounces easy to shoot. https://www.taurususa.com/revolvers/taurus-judge-series/judge-public-defender-poly-45-colt-410-ga-black-polymer-2-50-in

And .410 #8/#9 shot is easier to find than .38 snake shot about half the time. It's also about 1/5 the price. I get where folks are coming from but CCI snake shot in .38s are about $1.5/round. While .410 is like .25/round. At least during normal times. Right now .38 Snakeshot is $3.5/round and .410 is 1.25/round.

[pangloss]

When I was a kid, the thing my parents said to me more than anything else was "watch out for snakes." Fortunately I did a good job of that and never ran into problems. One of the best shots I ever made was on a swimming water moccasin at ~15 yards that I shot through the temple with a .22LR. The most exciting one though was huge water moccasin I caught trying to move a catfish it'd bitten up out of the water that I shot with a 20 gauge at near point blank range. Honestly, I probably have more trigger time shooting snakes and turtles than anything else, even though I haven't done either in years now. I've yet to kill a rattlesnake, but a couple of years ago when I was at my parents house I noticed that the dogs were barking a different sort of bark one night. I stepped out onto the back porch, and a quick flash of the Surefire revealed a very large rattlesnake stretched out on the sidewalk between the house and the garage. My dad killed that one with a hoe or a shovel.

For a couple of years when I was a kid, my dad took up crawfishing. We'd spend afternoons out in the swamp setting and checking nets. There were literally snakes everywhere. I was too young to shoot unattended then, but trying to shoot snakes in that situation would have been pure folly. I survived, and I'd be happy to do that again if the opportunity presented itself. However, I'd never take my suburban third grader into that situation, and that makes me sad. Time for bed before I ramble too much.

[medmo]

Spraying clove oil diluted in water makes an effective snake barrier. It is approved and used by the USDA. I use about 8 drops per cup of water in the sprayer with clove oil purchased from Walmart and spray a barrier monthly around the house, yard, barn and chicken house. It's been working 100%. Zero snakes inside the barrier for about 18 months. Found this solution after my wife almost stepped on a copperhead in the back yard. It was the second copperhead in the yard in a month. Also no chicken eggs disappearing any longer.

[Doc_Glock]

They’re around but you just don’t see them.

Today I got briefly rattled at while cruising down a rock garden on the bike. Went back to take a look and could neither stimulate a rattle nor see the snake. In my limited experience the local black and black tails usually retreat if you leave them alone.

Mojaves are assholes though and I expect W. Diamondbacks are the same.

[Clusterfrack]

On the dog walk yesterday, the male dog got 'snaked'. He jumped about 12" in the air, with all 4 feet, but it was only a stick.

[GJM]

SC copperhead bite:

https://news.yahoo.com/hilton-head-woman-bitten-3-170216898.html

Rattler ended up in the stats shack at a match in April, and a person took it out with a .38 and snake shot.

Doesn't this seem like a lot of bites?




The Palmetto Poison Center, which tracks calls for snake bites, has received 42 calls so far this year, according to its director, Jill Michels.

That’s on par with last year, as Michels said the center had 43 snake bites calls by this time in 2020. Throughout the last year, the center handled 245 snake bite cases.

In May 2018, the center had received just 18 calls, The Island Packet reported at the time.

[Coyotesfan97]

Today I got briefly rattled at while cruising down a rock garden on the bike. Went back to take a look and could neither stimulate a rattle nor see the snake. In my limited experience the local black and black tails usually retreat if you leave them alone.

Mojaves are assholes though and I expect W. Diamondbacks are the same.

I think Westerns are more likely to try to disappear as well if you leave them alone. If not they’ll coil and strike if needed.

I’ve never dealt with Mojaves. I think they’re in high deserts/low mountains.

I’ve heard they are assholes. The vet who treated my dog said they’re bite is likely fatal to dogs and antivenin doesn’t work well. The vet said the majority of bites he treats are from Westerns.

ETA I was curious so I did some reading on Mohaves. Their range is a lot bigger in Arizona then I thought. I might have seen them and not known.

[Doc_Glock]

I think Westerns are more likely to try to disappear as well if you leave them alone. If not they’ll coil and strike if needed.

I’ve never dealt with Mojaves. I think they’re in high deserts/low mountains.

I’ve heard they are assholes. The vet who treated my dog said they’re bite is likely fatal to dogs and anti venom doesn’t work well. The vet said the majority of bites he treats are from Westerns.

I had one Mojave interaction and it was the first and only snake that actually advanced toward me aggressively!

It probably didn't help that a friend and I had just run it over with our bikes.

[Coyotesfan97]

I had one Mojave interaction and it was the first and only snake that actually advanced toward me aggressively!

It probably didn't help that a friend and I had just run it over with our bikes.

That’s something I worry about when riding in Usury Park. :eek:

Mohave Rattlesnake (https://tucsonherpsociety.org/amphibians-reptiles/snakes/mohave-rattlesnake/)

[Caballoflaco]

I had one Mojave interaction and it was the first and only snake that actually advanced toward me aggressively!

It probably didn't help that a friend and I had just run it over with our bikes.

Here in the southeast we have water mocassins or cottonmouths if you prefer. I’ve had them start swimming in my direction from ten to fifteen yards out before. I don’t know if they’re being aggressive or curious because I’ve never hung around long enough to find out. Our copperheads and timber rattlers on the other hand tend to be pretty mellow unless you step on them or grab them.

[Duelist]

Today I got briefly rattled at while cruising down a rock garden on the bike. Went back to take a look and could neither stimulate a rattle nor see the snake. In my limited experience the local black and black tails usually retreat if you leave them alone.

Mojaves are assholes though and I expect W. Diamondbacks are the same.


I think Westerns are more likely to try to disappear as well if you leave them alone. If not they’ll coil and strike if needed.

I’ve never dealt with Mojaves. I think they’re in high deserts/low mountains.

I’ve heard they are assholes. The vet who treated my dog said they’re bite is likely fatal to dogs and antivenin doesn’t work well. The vet said the majority of bites he treats are from Westerns.

ETA I was curious so I did some reading on Mohaves. Their range is a lot bigger in Arizona then I thought. I might have seen them and not known.


I had one Mojave interaction and it was the first and only snake that actually advanced toward me aggressively!

It probably didn't help that a friend and I had just run it over with our bikes.

Mojaves can be complete assholes and their venom, as stated, is very toxic. Diamondbacks are much easier to deal with. Most rattlesnakes are pretty easy to avoid, though.

All of the people I personally know who have been bitten were messing with/trying to pick up the snake. Most of the dogs I know of are bitten on the face because they are either curious and nosing the snake, or are trying to bite and kill it. Dogs and people that avoid snakes tend to not have problems.

I still carry a jframe loaded with shot when out and about in the AZ countryside spring/summer/fall. And every snake I’ve ever killed still has been with a shovel or stick.

[SeriousStudent]

I got bit by a banded rock rattler when I was a kid. I still have the scar on my right arm.

The biggest fight was not me tangling with a rattler, but my grandfather explaining to my grandmother why he drove me to a large animal vet, instead of the local hospital.

After he tried explaining that the 60+ year old vet had seen and treated way more snake bites than the 26-year-old intern, he finally just threw up his hands and said "Of course I took him to the vet! Have you seen that boy eat?"