Let’s imagine you’ve gone on a hiking holiday somewhere in the American Southwest.
You’ve been having the time of your life, and on the last leg of your journey you decide
to explore a place called Saguaro National Park in Arizona.
You’ve been walking for miles in the dry heat amid eye-catching tall cacti, but you’ve
taken the safety precautions, have food and water, and know your way.
What you didn’t think about was snakes, because hey, where you come from snakes are
hardly a cause for concern.
So when you feel something bite your leg and look down to see a snake you are somewhat
terrified.
You hear the rattle and know it’s a rattlesnake, but you have no idea what to do now?
Does this mean certain death, the loss of a limb?
This is exactly what happened to one man who was unfortunate enough to get on the wrong
side of a rattlesnake.
He was bitten by a Northern Pacific rattlesnake, which in terms of venom toxicity is not the
worst to be bitten by.
You have to understand there are many types of rattlesnakes, and you’ll find them all
over the Americas.
These guys belong to the pit viper family, and so you really don’t want to make them
bite you.
We say make them bite you because the rattlesnake in general doesn’t usually strike for no
reason.
If you hear it rattle, it means they are scared and telling you to go away.
Unfortunately, some folks just get too close or even step on them.
When that happens their fangs penetrate your skin and the venom travels through ducts inside
those fangs and enters your body.
It depends on the kind of rattlesnake as to what effect it might have on you.
Something called hemotoxic venom sometimes causes necrosis of the flesh.
It destroys bodily tissue.
A quick Google image search of “rattlesnake necrosis” will certainly put you off your
cereal in the morning.
In fact, those are images we’d rather not have seen.
Some other types of rattlesnakes such as the Mojave rattlesnake might do worse than taking
part of your body.
Its neurotoxic venom might lead to three of the worst words in the English language, especially
in sequence.
Those are paralysis, coma, death.
What we are saying is that you really don’t want to get bitten by one of these things.
But the fact is, it happens quite a lot.
It’s stated that something like 7,000–8,000 people per year in the United States alone
are bitten by venomous snakes, and 16 species of rattlesnakes are responsible for a lot
of those.
Most snakebite deaths in the USA are attributed to the eastern diamondback rattlesnake and
the western diamondback rattlesnake.
You can look at recent reports and find people who’d just gone out into their garden and
it was the last thing they ever did.
One guy was playing golf and when looking for his ball he got bitten on the ankle by
a rattlesnake and it eventually killed him.
Another guy was in church when a rattler bit him, and he died not long after.
That was a Timber rattlesnake, and from we can see, they are responsible for a lot of
fatal bites.
The good news is if you see one it will likely not just go on the attack.
They give you the warning rattle, and you can walk away and all will be fine.
They are generally not an aggressive snake.
It’s only when you surprise them, like going down to pick up your errant golf ball, that
you might get unlucky.
If you try to pick one of these snakes up, well, you’re an idiot.
Please don’t do that.
They are not exactly touchy-feely creatures, either, so don’t think it wants to be stroked.
The man we found who was bitten stepped on his snake, so he didn’t have much of a chance.
He was lucky, though, and while he had to spend some time in the hospital he was ok
after a day or two.
It’s said that around 20 percent of venomous snakebites in the U.S. lead to a trip to intensive
care.
You should always seek medical care, that’s for sure.
We might take the case of a Tennessee man in 2019 who was bitten and decided it was
just a scratch.
This is what he told the press after his hand started rotting away and didn’t look too
much like a hand anymore, “I honestly never thought that a rattlesnake bite was that big
of a deal...It didn’t hurt real bad, just like getting stung.”
We bet he wished he’d once googled rattlesnake necrosis.
He ended up in hospital where the staff drained his hand of toxins, but he was still badly
injured with a huge swollen black finger.
Lucky for him, the doctors said he’d keep the finger.
This guy said he had been picking up bits of metal when he was struck.
He posted a photo of his injury on Facebook, to which some people replied, “Good god
almighty that’s horrifying!” and “I had no idea how bad it could be.”
Well, now you guys know how bad it can be.
Now listen to this, a story that is perhaps much more shocking.
In 2018 a guy from Texas was cleaning his yard when he saw a rattlesnake.
He wasn’t the type of person to suffer snakes gladly and so took his shovel and chopped
off the snake’s head.
He then threw the body in the garbage and subsequently tried to do the same with the
head.
But guess what, that head bit him.
The U.S. media reported that subsequent to this he received a massive dose of venom.
We guess the headless snake was somewhat bummed about losing its head.
The man immediately fell very ill and wasn’t even in good enough shape to move, and so
he had to be airlifted to the nearest hospital.
He received a lot of antivenom and he was in care for a while.
He would have died had he not been taken to the hospital fast.
Scientists later said that snakes indeed can bite for up to four hours after they lose
their head, and that’s just a natural response to the head being touched.
One biologist that works with snakes all over the world actually said, “It happens fairly
often.”
In many countries where dangerous snakes lurk, people go right for the head chop, but often
they don’t know that the head is still live, so to speak.
He said this, too, so be careful out there, “You can easily snag your finger on a fang
of a long-dead snake and be envenomated.”
Our last story involves a man that wasn’t as lucky, because in 2018 the rattlesnake
that bit him ended his life.
This was a guy from Oklahoma and he was just driving down the road when he saw a snake.
He thought he’d be a good Samaritan and move it out of the road so it wouldn’t get
run over by a car.
His wife was with him and she saw everything.
He used his hands to move the snake, and it bit them both.
He got the double strike.
She later told the media, “We were just going to walk and have a day outside enjoying
the lake.
It was his birthday.”
The man knew he was in trouble and phoned for an ambulance, but on its arrival he just
dropped to the ground and that was it, he was dead.
The emergency officials tried to revive him, but they could do nothing.
His wife gave this advice to other Americans, “Don’t mess with snakes.
If you hear it rattling, you leave it alone.”
But going back to the beginning of our story and you going on that hike in Arizona only
to be bitten by a rattlesnake, what should you do if that happens?
First of all, you might have gotten lucky because sometimes the snakes don’t envenomate.
These are known as dry bites and are like a warning punch.
You’ll look at the bite and if you see puncture wounds you’ll know it has it got its teeth
into you.
If envenomated, you will immediately likely feel some amount of burning and pain, and
within 5 minutes the place where it bit will become swollen.
The skin will also have changed color.
Right now you have toxins flooding into you.
It’s not the best of predicaments, but you should not panic.
This is not just because panicking never helped anyone, but the more you panic the faster
the venom will spread.
You might also go into shock.
Worst case scenario is you go into shock and die pretty quickly, but it’s very unlikely
that is going to happen.
In your case you feel not too bad, so you should wash the area.
Don’t go running around and don’t move the bitten part too much, you don’t want
to go circulating that venom.
Stay still and be calm.
If you’re bitten on the hand, put your arm in a sling.
With these bites the most important thing is not to move the part of the body that is
bitten too much.
But if you are bitten on the leg and you have no choice but to walk out of a place to get
help you should at least walk calmly.
Don’t go sprinting out yelling like crazy, this is a huge NO NO.
If you can get back to your car, say, within an hour and a hospital is only about an hour
away you are likely not going to lose any limbs or die.
Don’t even think about sucking the venom out like you once saw in a movie, and don’t
tie anything around the injured area.
No tourniquets, and also don’t try and ice the area.
Don’t take pain relievers and don’t drink any booze if you think that will help the
pain.
Basically, clean the area and stay still and figure out how you can get to hospital.
When you get to that hospital try and give the best description you can as to what fiend
did this to you.
If possible, a picture should always be taken of the snake, which shouldn’t be a problem
these days as every day out seems to end up on Instagram.
As we showed you, sometimes the pain isn’t that bad and you feel ok, but give it a day
and you might see something turning black.
Don’t take the risk, consult a medical professional.
We say that, but in most countries a hospital visit is free and so is antivenom, but in
the U.S. it can be costly.
Still, your life is at risk so you really should go.
The good news is these bites are very rarely fatal, so you’d be one in thousands if you
did die.
We found only three cases of deaths in the USA from thousands of bites in 2018.
The faster you get to a hospital though the better, because that venom can be a time bomb.
Just to be safe, too, if hiking where there are snakes it’s a safe bet to wear boots
and long trousers.
You can actually buy snake pants, too.
We shouldn’t have to tell you again but we will because it seems some people don’t
listen, do not mess with these things.
Leave them alone.
Have you ever been bitten by a snake?
Can you give us some us some more advice about snake bites?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Most Painful Animal Attacks Human Could Ever
Endure.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.