The main point is that old fashioned first aid consisting of a tourniquet, then cutting and sucking, is worse than useless. It is the reason so many people in the past lost their limbs and/or suffered extreme tissue damage. The only thing worse is the idiotic idea that electrocuting yourself with a car battery will help. Such cures fall into the category of the traditional Belizean method of tying a dead chicken to the afflicted limb, that way the limb and the chicken rot then fall off together. Prayer helps as much as any other voodoo cure.
The bottom line is that if you get bitten and envenomated (many defensive bites are “dry”) walk, don’t run, to the nearest hospital. Despite what almost everyone thinks, snakes are a thing of the past. Across the earth almost all species are in precipitous decline. This is even true in wilderness area rarely visited by humans, because the cause of the decline is not direct persecution but rather invasive diseases and unraveled ecosystems. It is human nature to see a snake, or hear a story about a snake, then suppose that the woods are full of them. Ask anyone who lives of the edge of the woods and they will tell you how bad the problem is. These are the same folks who see imaginary black panthers with glowing eyes right behind their doublewide. I and several of my friends have spent this entire spring hunting for snakes in a huge triangle from the southern tip of Florida to Alabama to eastern North Carolina, in other words most of the southeastern US which is the snakiest part of the country. Our score is two rattlesnakes, a coral snake, about a dozen moccasins in the everglades, and a dozen or so harmless snakes such as kingsnakes, blacksnakes, etc. That would have been a good score on a single day in the late 60’s. To accomplish this we drove thousands of miles and walked at least a hundred. We went to all the best spots, burned fields, old barns, log piles, roofing tin piles, rock outcrops, etc. Most importantly, we kept track of road kills. That is the best way to census snake populations but we found almost nothing. On my recent trip to north Alabama I drove almost 1600 miles but didn’t find a single dead copperhead on the road. Pathetic! So feel free to walk around barefooted and poke your fingers into rock crevices. The chances are that nothing will happen. Weazel From: Texascavers <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Michael Gibbons Sent: Sunday, June 2, 2019 8:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Snakebite management article Interesting article. He left me after about paragraph 1 with confusing contradictory advise. Over heart unless a rattler even with heart but moccasin below until you get to the hospital where all bites are diagnosed so your picture doesn't help unless you couldn't find the right hospital and the one your at follows antiquated techniques so just don't do anything and pray to God where ever your going the staff has never seen a snake bite so you can show them this article and maybe live. Point is new knowledge ain't always best knowledge. Every hospital I know if knows how to treat bites that come in with conventional first aide. This guy might the guru but even he is unconvinced that anyone else out there can follow procedure. I'll stick to the mainstream treatment that every Texas doctor has seen until this guys techniques are mainstream. On Wed, May 29, 2019, 10:16 AM Geary Schindel <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Folks, As cavers, we get out and about in some places that we share with snakes. Treatment recommendations have changed some since we might have taken first aid. Here is an excellent article on Snakebite Management (Pre-Hospital) from one of the forums I subscribe to. I think you will find it informative. The article was written by Dr. Spencer Greene who is an MD at Baylor in Houston and specializes in snakebite treatment. He has treated more than 600 bites from all kinds of snakes. I emailed him about treatment options in San Antonio and he also offered to come make a presentation. I was thinking he might be a good speaker for the spring TSA. While fatalities are rare, he notes that time is tissue damage and long term disability is a possibility. I think you'll find this a quick but important read. https://wsed.org/snakebite-management-pre-hospital/?fbclid=IwAR10kvndyfxVAA3_ovjSFo9izSMEmKxg_j03Aid4coN5xKtuSypZzAuz3T8 Enjoy Geary Schindel _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
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