This is a Florida Diamondback. I shot it around 200 yards from my parents. The small hole in his head was made by a .30 Tokarev. He was around 7 feet long and really heavy.
Posted on 06/13/2016 7:13:31 PM PDT by Gamecock
SC Ping?
Hey envirowackos and your millenial dupes: your gads nature and ‘da erf’ hate you to death!
Probably age and poor health contributed to his death.
I pretty much stay out of the woods during the Summer months here in NW Florida.
Avoid getting bit whenever possible.
He sounded more like an old fashioned conservationist than a modern environmentalist.
Damn for a second I was really sad. My mind read Conservative and not Conservationist.
Feeling better now. Darwin just handing out awards.
I guess they don’t tell you to put on a tourniquet around your leg and have someone suck out the poison with their mouth anymore.
Sounds like his underlying medical condition might have had something to do with his death. I don’t recall ever hearing of someone dying within 15 minutes of being bitten by a rattlesnake. It’s gotten somewhat unusual for death to occur at all anymore, with the advent of antivenins.
I get Pacific Rattlers here in my neck of the woods. I use the snake shot on those puppies. Killed two so far this year. Some years its more. Saw a six footer slither by but held my shot as it was a Bull Snake. Like those guys. I had two curled up at the sink in the Barn one late Spring. Big boys and girls obviously digesting. They didn’t care about me and in a day they left.
Lately I have had little frogs hanging out at the sink in the barn, Today I had eight little guys hanging out in my funnel and pitcher. Told everyone out of the pool cause I had to work. They jumped up on the pitcher with three or four stacked atop each other and watched as I worked.
I get the frogs in the late spring and in the Winter. I look forward to my little amphibian buddies.
Growing up in the country, we were taught to cut the skin and make an X over the bite with a very sharp knife, then the tourniquet above the bite and then have someone suck the poison out. Also told not to run at all or walk very far as this could cause the poison to spread through your body quicker.
Guess it has changed?
This is a Florida Diamondback. I shot it around 200 yards from my parents. The small hole in his head was made by a .30 Tokarev. He was around 7 feet long and really heavy.
Lemme help these poor ignorant folks out...
He was bit by a Rattlesnake ... 71 Years Old and died.
It would be a “Story” if he “Survived”, if the Venom was injected into him 10’away from his Car that contained a Snakebite kit and the EMT showed within 5 minutes of the bite.
The chances of one happening vice the other are pretty slim.
Now if he was 20 years old... whole different story and yet...
I should have said around 200 yards from my Parent’s house.
I was walking on a dirt road going to fish in a pond. He was stretched out on the edge of a field. I almost did not see him.
Oh, OK.
A friend of mines dog was bitten by a snake and the anti venom that the vet gave the dog was very expensive, several thousand dollars.
One of my dogs was bitten by a copperhead on the end of his nose. It was many years ago and I don't remember it being a big deal.
More people in the U.S. are bitten by copperheads than any other venomous snake. Hardly anyone ever dies from their bite.
They are actually uncommon around here tho I killed two right in my back yard and within 5 minutes of each other. That was the first copperheads I had seen in this area in 50 years.
I remember somebody in the Houston area had a snake bite recently and he had to go to three different hospitals before he found one that had any anti-venom.
Didn’t realize it was so expensive - wonder if it’s covered by Obamacare. LOL
> Probably age and poor health contributed to his death. I pretty much stay out of the woods during the Summer months here in NW Florida.
What makes this especially unexpected isn’t just that only about half a dozen persons are killed nationally yearly. It’s that a grown man bitten by a rattlesnake on the lower leg died within fifteen minutes (and apparently collapsed earlier). The bite caused stress, and perhaps the venom contributed to the death, but almost certainly something else was the primary cause.
I’m in South Carolina and often take walks in the woods in the summer. I’m careful where I step, of course, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid stepping near underbrush in which a poisonous snake could be lying. I consider the risk low, though.
Maybe where you are there are more rattlesnakes, but in decades I’ve only encountered two. One rattled before I saw it, then slithered away. The other was crossing a trail. I kept my distance, but managed to get it to stop and coil, so that I could get a better look. Then I let it go on its way. I wouldn’t want one near my house, but out in the woods I don’t think they pose much of a risk.
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