I was following a wilderness trail back on the state land near my home searching for bear sign.

 

As a naturalist and a wildlife photographer I have spent countless hours observing bears and I have concluded that of all creatures bears really are such interesting folks.

 

The similarities between bears and humans are quite remarkable.

 

 Think of it, bears search for food, just like people.  They spend time eating, just like people. They play, just like people.  They have romances, just like people.  They raise families, just like people and they are unpredictable, just like people, yes; they really are like human folks.

 

As you will remember in the last post, “WITHOUT WARNING!”  I had inadvertently disturbed a large Eastern diamondback rattlesnake and as a consequence I had suffered a bite to my right index finger.

 

Heavy bodied and about four and a half feet in length, the snake was coiled and ready for a repeat performance if I pressed the issue.

 

 

A genuine “big” snake, old buzztail has been known to exceed eight feet in length though the largest specimen that I ever personally caught was six and a half + feet in length and I caught him alive for the Miami serpentarium many years ago.

 

As soon as he nailed me I realized why he had not buzzed a warning for He had lost his rattles.  As old buzztail crawls along, the dry, brittle rattles sometimes break away but it is really not all that common.

 

On the day in question it had led to my being bitten.

 

At this point I was not too concerned.  I knew that the strike was hot, meaning I had been envenomated.  The deep burning sensation at the site of the bite was similar in intensity to a bald faced hornet’s sting but I was close to a hospital, they would certainly know what to do?

 

Upon arrival at the hospital I was immediately admitted to the emergency ward where a nurse and a doctor began questioning me.

 

          With no preamble I told them that I was allergic to equine serum therefore they could not give me antivenin and they would have to use some alternative medical treatment such as lots and lots of fluids.

 

          The nurse came in and hooked me up to an I.V. which I figured was liquids.

 

          It was only minutes after starting the drip I.V. when I began to realize that not all was well for I could feel a quivering sensation in my eye lids and my lips which told me that I was going into anaphylactic shock.  Oh, oh, this shouldn’t be happening!

 

I told my wife to get the nurse and when they returned I asked the nurse if the Doctor had ordered antivenin for me.  She affirmed that he had and I told her to disconnect the I.V. immediately which she did though somewhat reluctantly.

 

At this point my right index finger was huge, three times its normal size and the swelling was proceeding up my arm.

 

The doctor entered at this point and he was quite indignant.  “Who was I to tell them what to do?”

 

Then he informed me that they were going to administer two units of antivenin and send me to another, larger hospital where they would be able to handle any complications.

 

Well now, this aint going to happen! 

 

I told the doctor that I was going to check myself out and go home and treat the snakebite myself which was what I did.

 

Now I am not advocating this folks.  You should always accept the help that is offered!

 

I have done a lot of research on my own into an unorthodox treatment for snakebite that is customarily used in third world countries.

 

Africa, India, as well as South and Central America, due to the fact that in most of the outback places they have no refrigeration to preserve antivenin, have been using the following technique successfully for several years and I personally had previously treated bee and wasp stings as well as scorpion stings so I was not really working in the blind here.

 

As a zoo director in years past I had suffered two previous snake bites so I had been tested for horse, or equine serum thus learning of my intolerance.

 

I called a friend of mine and he met us at our home and I told him what I proposed to do and asked him to video tape the procedure.

 

Now I must at this point make a disclaimer.  The A.M.A. has basically stopped all research in this technique.  Personally I believe this is due to the fact that they are more than cozy bed partners with the pharmaceutical companies that produce the antivenin but I could be wrong and the moon just might be made of green cheese.

 

Have you ever had the wonderful experience of being shocked by an electric fence?  Fun isn’t it?  That’s the treatment folks, electric shock.

 

Using a modified stun gun, I shocked the hand in the area of the bite and also the arm up to the shoulder and back to the hand approximately twenty times.

 

My friend filmed the results over the next three hours.

 

At the end of an hour the swelling was considerably reduced and at the end of three hours the finger was almost back to normal and there was no noticeable swelling in the rest of the hand.

 

There was no tissue loss and no subsequent scarring.

 

In the July 26th. 1986 issue of the medical journal “The Lancet” there is an article entitled, “High Voltage Shock Treatment for Snake Bite”

 

Part of the article reads as follows, “We have records on 34 cases of bites on limbs where there was evidence of penetration of the skin.  The current was applied within 30 minutes and 10 to 15 minutes later all pain had gone and the usual sequelae of an untreated bite,(swelling, serosanguinous bullae, bleeding, shock and renal failure) did not develop.  No patient died.  After an hour the patient was usually able to go home.  At follow-up there was no necrosis of tissue around the bite due either to the bite or the treatment.  7 people who refused the treatment experienced the classic complications and two needed life saving amputations.”

 

Look up Dr. Guderian in Quito Ecuador on the internet.  The Good Doctor and his colleagues have treated many very hot cases of snakebite successfully with this technique.

 

As far as I know this technique has not been tried in snake bite cases where the snake in question was a coral snake or a cobra therefore it might not work with nuerotoxic venom.

 

Remember, as in so many dangerous situations, be it bear attack;

falling off a mountain, or snake bite, the best prevention is always avoidance.  This doesn’t mean that it won’t happen it simply means that the chance of an incident occurring is reduced exponentially.

 

If there is enough interest in the subject I will print the entire article in a future blog.

 

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