Gary Nieborsky wrote:
>
> Spit, Adolf's, Aloe plants..............geez....out here in the wild west
> real hams cut a couple of X's at the sting site and suck out the venom..use
> the stingers to pick their teeth (really big wasps)......works for snake
> bite too.
>
> Gary
Hi Gary... I am "into" herpetology (I keep only NON-venomous snakes) and
wanted to comment about the cuts thing: DON'T DO IT. More people are
much more seriously 'damaged' every year from the cuts than they would
have been from the venom of your run-of-the-fang rattler (actually, most
venemous snake bites are by copperheads due to their excellent
camoflage.)
Also, any open sore in the mouth of the would-be first-aider and he/she
is going to have serious problems as well. By the way, more people (but
not all that many) die every year from bee & wasp stings than snake
bites-there being VERY few recorded cases of actual deaths due to North
American reptiles (when there were no health complications present in
the victim) EVER.
And finally, we are fortunate in that none of our NA snakes are
particularly aggressive (OK... if you were swimming with no hands or
feet across a lake, and there was this nice boat halfway across,
wouldn't you want to climb in for a little rest?). Unlike those of
Central & South America, Asia, and Australia. I have a friend who kept
Cobras who said they were the smartest snakes he has ever kept, and
sounded to me like he was genuinely a bit wary (read: afraid) of them.
(No I cannot imagine why anyone would keep anything that could kill
you-other than a Gila Monster... their bite is not very easy to be had,
and they are kinda neat looking... but that's another story.)
Fortunately you don't meet too many of these things UP on towers. Most
of our native snakes are only occasionally arboreal. Hope I didn't bore
you too much... but to get back to the point: all the first aid
organizations have revised their advice, and conclude that to get the
bite/sting victim to a hospital is really the correct thing to do. 73
--
Ed Tanton N4XY (770) 971-0436 Marietta, GA
email: n4xy@avana.net URL: Coming Soon
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