Wow.
"Humphlett doesn’t blame the snake" -- and there goes all of his credibility and my sympathy.
I guess it was a good thing he wasn't down on the ground looking for a lost contact lens...
Posted on 01/20/2025 1:26:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
A social media influencer and wildlife enthusiast was hospitalized after a rattlesnake bit him in Dixie County.
David Humphlett, @adventorin on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, travels the United States to find and showcase wildlife, particularly snakes and other reptiles.
The Gainesville resident was searching for snakes on Dec. 18 on Shired Island in Dixie County when a diamondback rattlesnake found him first.
“Welp, I’m cooked,” Humphlett said on video moments after the snake bit his leg. “Alright, that right there is a fantastic Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that I just got bit in the leg by when I was peeling bark.”
He was peeling bark around a tree in an effort to find another type of snake when he startled the viper.
“And then I just felt, out of nowhere, this intense pain, right in my leg. Honestly, it felt like an alligator,” Humphlett said.
He rushed to a Cross City fire station where he was then taken to UF Health Shands by helicopter.
“My reaction was just like dang it, this is really bad,” Humphlett recounted. “I might lose my leg. It was petty scary because my whole body went numb head to toe.”
A familiar face was waiting for him at the hospital. His wife, a UF Health nurse, was at work.
“Internally, I’m panicking but externally, I’m reassuring him, ‘You’re going to be fine,’” said Emma Rynear, Humphlett’s wife. “My team here at work helped me run down to the emergency room to be right there as the helicopter landed.”
Doctors gave him 88 vials of antivenom as his leg swelled from the snake’s venom. After 13 days, he remains in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
The couple says the community’s support has been incredible.
“That’s just the God we serve,” said Rynear. “He turns things that seem crappy and makes them really beautiful.”
Despite the life-threatening run-in with the rattlesnake, Humphlett doesn’t blame the animal and views the incident as an educational moment.
“The snake is just doing what it does. It perceived me as a threat and it was just trying to protect itself. I’m not mad at the snake and I don’t want anyone else to be mad at the snake either,” said Humphlett.
He is excited to get back into the wild once released from the hospital. He and his wife set up a gofundme to help pay for Humphlett’s medical bills.
Shoot!
I would say an "influencer" is more in the business of selling products or pushing an ideology, while a successful YouTuber may just be an entertainer. Obviously, the line is blurry. Even, "Look, snakes are cool! Ooooops!" is an agenda of sorts.
Wow.
"Humphlett doesn’t blame the snake" -- and there goes all of his credibility and my sympathy.
I guess it was a good thing he wasn't down on the ground looking for a lost contact lens...
I had this discussion with the president of the pharmaceutical division of my (former) company. A friend of mine in California had been bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking and the cost at the time had been $7500 per vial. The president told me they were no longer allowed to “milk” the venom from domestic rattlesnakes and had to import the juice from out of the country. I think at the time we had this discussion, it had gone to $15,000 per vial.
I’ve seen this guy on YouTube before. He’s not that stupid.
He actually loves and respects snakes, and tries to get them on camera, so we too can see them. Like Steve Irwin, but not as reckless.
He didn’t see this snake until it bit him.
Other snakebite victims have reported getting hospital bills exceeding $240,000. The family of a 9-year-old girl bit by a snake at summer camp got their insurance provider to cover a $142,938 hospital bill.
The average cost for a hospital bill to treat a rattlesnake bite is over $100,000, according to Geoffrey Smelski, the education director of the Arizona Poison & Drug Information Center.
“All of this takes several months to produce a single batch of antivenom, that will only be used in a handful of people,” Smelski said.
The expenses and complexities attached to producing antivenom led to some manufacturers dramatically reducing the amount they produced by the end of the 20th century, according to a 2015 article published in the International Journal of Health Policy.
I suspect liability risk stopped a lot of it in the US.
“We did a lot of stupid crap growing up in the 60’ and 70’s, but we never searched out Rattle Snakes for fun”
He was not out searching rattle snakes.
“The president told me they were no longer allowed to “milk” the venom from domestic rattlesnakes”
Never heard of such a ban.
88 VIALS OF ANTI-SNAKE VENOM??
That is quite a bit
I have read stories of young men in Arizona who put themselves through college and made a nice part-time living by going into the desert on the weekends and catching rattlesnakes to deliver to the labs that made the antivenin.
I grew up in the hills of Tennessee and I spent a lot of time in the woods and streams and saw many snakes. The thing is to look for them so you don’t step on them. The only dangerous snake is the one you don’t see.
“ He didn’t see this snake until it bit him.”
But was he looking to make sure a snake was not there?
He is lucky. It was a timber rattler.
If he had been hit with a Mohave, he would have been in even more serious danger.
Mohaves have a mix of hemo and neuro toxins. Then, they have whats called A and B toxins. Which means each snake can have a mix of more neuro or a mix of more Hemo toxins.
And they an attitude. I have had them come after me.
This conversation did take place 20 years ago, so I’m probably misremembering a considerable portion of it, but the gist was that they had to go outside the country to get a portion of this product that they used to be able to generate here. Let me ask you as the expert then; are you the president of a pharmaceutical division?
😂🤣
Then you get mongooses to take care of the snake.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=law+suits+rattle+snake+venom&ia=web
hard to get, you can’t get sued? Old timers got out of business?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_snake_bites_in_the_United_States
Lester was driving down a road when he spotted the rattlesnake. He tried to move it to safety but was bitten on both hands. Lester collapsed shortly thereafter and was pronounced dead.[14]
Westbrook was bitten just above the right elbow while handling a copperhead; he had been attempting to determine the snake’s sex.[3
Texas — Yancy was bitten while pulling up his pants in Smithville.[37]
West Virginia — Mounts was bitten twice in the arm by a cottonmouth and drank strychnine during a religious service in Mingo County.[88][89][90]
Illinois — Schmidt, a renowned herpetologist, died in Chicago while documenting the effects of a venomous bite of a snake he was trying to identify. The snake was later identified as a juvenile African boomslang.[108]
It’s illegal to import mongooses because they reproduce at an astonishing rate.
One thing he couldn’t do was wear a good pair of boots.
LOL
was searching for snakes
**CHOMP**
Found one !
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