Posted on 09/29/2025 12:04:57 PM PDT by Red Badger
This is absolutely insane!
Bureaucracy run amok, and that’s putting it kindly.
Folks, common sense is GONE in America, and this proves it once again.
Two first responders from Powell County in Kentucky saved a man’s life after he was bit by a poisonous mamba snake and was advancing towards cardiac arrest.
They administered anti-venom that they luckily had brought with them and saved the man who almost certainly would have died without it.
The problem?
Well, there is no problem if you ask me, but if you ask the red-tape bureaucrats the problem is they didn’t have the necessary “wilderness” certification necessary to administer anti-venom.
Unreal.
This guy explains it well here:
The KY Board of Emergency Medical Services should be thanking Eddie Barnes for saving a life. Instead they are trying to take his career away, because he acted.
Read and Listen ⬇️https://t.co/y58m20YlMV pic.twitter.com/WgFMtMtaro— Liam Gallagher (@LiamGallagherKY) September 29, 2025
Yahoo News / People adds these details:
Two first responders in Kentucky could potentially lose their licences after saving a man’s life.
Powell County paramedic Eddie Barnes and one of his team members were called to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in May after the zoo’s co-director, James Harrison, was bitten by a poisonous mamba snake, local news outlet LEX 18 reported.
Barnes told the outlet that he and his teammate went with Harrison to the airport to wait for a medical helicopter. While they were waiting, Harrison told them he needed antivenom as soon as possible — and that he had brought his own from the zoo.
“He said the first part of the stage is paralysis, second part is respiratory arrest, third part is cardiac arrest. He said, ‘I’m gonna die,’ ” Barnes recalled while speaking to the outlet.
Barnes said he attempted to call his supervisor, who didn’t answer, and so he then reached out to Clark Regional Medical Center and spoke to an ER doctor who “gave us permission” to administer the antivenom.
Now, Barnes and his teammate may lose their EMS licenses due to a technicality: Only first responders classified as “wilderness paramedics” are authorized to administer antivenom, per the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services (KBEMS), according to LEX 18. The policy was put in place two years ago, per the outlet.
Neither Barnes nor his partner had wilderness paramedic certification at the time of the incident, and they now have a hearing scheduled for Sept. 30 to find out if they will get to keep their licenses.
Absolutely ridiculous!
Not a single moment more should be spent on this.
Give them an award for having the foresight to bring the anti-venom and save this man’s life!
VIDEO AT LINK........................
If they don’t administer it, is it murder? Is there no one with common sense in that state?
Yep
“
Ain’t no lion or tiger, ain’t no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Everybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard, little wog, sail away with me”
Sail Away. Randy Newman
That’s the one.
Didn’t Rosemary Clooney sing a song about that?
Reading the article is fundamental:
Powell County paramedic Eddie Barnes and one of his team members were called to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in May after the zoo’s co-director, James Harrison, was bitten by a poisonous mamba snake, local news outlet LEX 18 reported.
Beat me to it.
If he would have died, Then you would be able to see the lawsuits from outer space.
The victim was the co-director of a Reptile Zoo in Kentucky. My guess is that there was a poisonous, venomous mamba at the zoo.
Exactly right.
My first excuse would be that the snake expert provided us his own anti-venom and was clearly an expert in the symptoms and treatment. And I gave it to him under his expert authority.
My second thought would be “Oh - did I say I gave it to him!? No - he gave it to himself.”
Third would be “I’m well aware of the wilderness certificate. But clearly he was bitten at the zoo and we were at the airport - not in the wilderness.” [I would think giving any sort of treatment for any injuries would require a bit more training if one is out in the wilderness and hours away from facilities.]
Wilderness training in Kentucky is how to deal with shotgun wounds from “recreational distillers” protecting their equipment. Maybe rattlesnakes and copperheads too.
Is the survivor a registered Republican? Did he think Charlie Kirk was a good guy?
If so, that is why they are really angry he is still alive.
Biting people named ‘James Harrison’. It’s a limited risk.
Absurd and a waste of time and money to pursue this prosecution.
Surely someone with enough authority and common sense will shut this stupidity down.
Mamba snake?
_______________
Highly venomous African snakes of the genus Dendroaspis ...3 species as best I can recall; Black Mamba, Green Mamba and Jamieson’s Mamba
They need a lawyer. They did what they did under the direction of an ER physician who was authorized to order such treatments!! Even if the persons did not have the exact certificate to administer it on their own, they had the expertise to administer it as DIRECTED by a senior presiding Health provider...ie. the DOCTOR. I should think that if the doctor were brought in as a witness along with other legal documentation on behalf of these two men, that their licenses could be preserved. The EMT’s weren’t operating in a vacuum and they were the ones with the medicine who could deliver it in time in a timely matter. If they had waited fpr some shmoe with the proper certificate, the victim might well have died before getting the antivenom med from the “properly certified” person.
On the other hand, a wiser solution which would have saved face for everyone is a stay on license removal provided ,that the two EMTs get their wilderness certification say within 1 year. Authority is maintained and kentucky doesn’t lose to valuable EMTs!
Actually, Mambas are not poisonous. You can eat them and it won't hurt you. But they are highly venomous. Their bite is deadly.
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