If you are ever bit by a poisonous snake and no immediate emergency care is available, an electric shock will neutralize the poison and save your life. A stun gun is ideal. Jumper cables connected to a car battery will also work.
His wife got another shock. The air ambulance bill was $30,000.
“If you are ever bit by a poisonous snake and no immediate emergency care is available, an electric shock will neutralize the poison and save your life. A stun gun is ideal. Jumper cables connected to a car battery will also work.”
That is 100% untrue. That legend started long ago. The testimonial stories are indeed true. HOWEVER, a sizable percentage of snakebites are dry bites...no venom injected. In such cases you could do a voodoo incantation over the bitten person and it would appear to work.
So you will either electrocute a person who doesn’t need help, OR you will electrocute an envenomated victim and speed up their heart rate.
Don’t do it.
Well... maybe they would if you shoved one of them up your rectum and the other down your throat.
You will never get a shock from a car battery. I have changed many batteries with my bare hand touching the positive terminal with a wrench and the other hand touching the negative ground. Not even a tingle. If you really want to get a shock, disconnect a spark plug wire and let it spark onto a finger while touching a metal part of the car. Watch out for your head. It may hit the car hood as you jump.
Wrong! Remain calm and wait for help. The only endemic snake in the US that will kill an adult is a coral snake. More injury is done to victims by well meaning individuals trying to treat the bite than is done by the bite itself. People have lost limbs to tourniquets applies to bite areas that were likely not even envenomated and would not have been lethal if they were. Electric shock does nothing for the bite but is quite good at stopping your heart
Fact: There is absolutely no scientifically sound evidence that electric shock or the use of any stun gun on a snakebite, either in man or animal, is effective in preventing the effects of venomous snakebite. In victims with serious snakebite who used the device they still had symptoms of snakebite and required standardized medical treatment including antivenom. They may have had some relief from pain and swelling as a result of the shock but that is all.
Fact: Application of electric shock with a stun gun is intended to immobilize a target, making it go down. It is risky and dangerous to apply this sort of insult to a person who may already be severely compromised by a venomous snakebite. The shock itself can be painful and damage to local tissues can exacerbate local tissue necrosis and infection.
Fact: In spite of anecodtal and non-scientific testimonial reports to the contrary, unless or until the beneficial effects of this treatment can be duplicated in animal experiments in the laboratory, the use of a stun gun on electro shock can be dangerous as well as a useless, time wasting exercise and time would be better spent applying more conventional means of first aid and arranging transport to the nearest medical facility.
Fact: The use of electric shock as reported by Guderian in 1986 is nothing new. It was widely used at the turn of the century under similar promise supported by unscientific, testimonial or anecodtal reports. It fell out of favor when people who used it did not achieve relief....some no doubt died and the idea of electric shock for snakebite was swiftly relegated to the trash heap. It is particularly frustrating, therefore, that in 1998 the scientific and medical communities are again faced with an unsubstantiated treatment for a disorder that can have grave consequences if improperly treated.