sheeesh....don't get into a plane with this dark cloud
Posted on 10/27/2009 4:48:49 PM PDT by jwparkerjr
TAMPA - John Agan was doubly unlucky today – he got bit by not one but two venomous snakes.
Doctors think one was a coral snake and the other was a pygmy rattler.
The bites happened when Agan was walking his dog at about 1:45 p.m. outside the Masters Inn at U.S. 92 and State Road 579.
(Excerpt) Read more at 2.tbo.com ...
The bite mark of coral snake is quite different from that of a snake with fangs.
As a person born and raised in snake country, my dad managed a cattle ranch in Okeechobee, FL, I learned early on the importance of taking the snake, dead or alive, to the treatment center. Not that you would spend a lot of time chasing and killing a snake after being bitten, but if a bystander can kill or capture the snake it can sure save you a lot of trouble and unnecessary, expensive, treatment.
Looking at the picture it's obvious something got a hold of him though!
Of course much of the parts of the story that don't make sense could be due simply to the poor state of journalism today!
sheeesh....don't get into a plane with this dark cloud
Yeah, I don’t get the coral snake bite at all. I could see how he could have been bitten by a rattler, though.
I’m betting this Einstein was trying to get the snakes to fight each other and they both turned on him instead.
I thought like you. I had heard that coral snakes don’t have a jaw spread enough to get a bite into human skin. The venom is extremely poisonous, but kinda hard to get bit.
Coral snake ot the shin?
I don’t think so.
The coral snake has it’s ‘fangs’ in the back of the mouth, they’re really modified grooved teeth.
He would have to have quite a bit of flabby bits in the things mouth for that to happen, and shins tend not to have that much stretch to the skin.
Coral Snakes most definitely do bit people.
When I was a kid maybe early 60’s or late 50’s a Ranger at Eglin AFB was bitten by a coral snake. They literally flew in anti-venom from New Orleans by a fighter jet.
He did live.
Bingo!
Coral snake venom is a neurotoxin. If it was a coral snake, and it was untreated for a long time, the patient would have a good chance of assuming room temperature.
Something seems a bit off with this story.
Gee, this guy ought to buy a Lotto ticket with this kind of luck. Doesn’t the motel mow the lawn or clean around the rock bin? Must be a jungle if two kinds of sssssnakes are present.
I concur with you that this sounds fishy.
Mainly because, from what I understand, coral snakes prefer to burrow in wet hummus while rattlers prefer a bit of a dryer hiding place.
Looking at the picture, though, it does look like he has another wound on his foot besides the one on his shin.
The swelling on this guy’s leg is consistent with a rattler bite. The coral snake venom is primarily a neurotoxic venom and I don’t believe that causes much swelling, maybe a little redness around the bite.
It’s true that coral snakes don’t strike like rattlers, but they can bend around and bite, which how most people get bitten when they step on one in bare feet. Then they latch on and chew-in their venom. The coral snake may not be as efficient at getting its venom in, but its venom is some of the most potent on the planet by weight.
It’s true that it is very important to identify the snake type if a person is bitten, but it’s not always a good idea to try to capture it. I’d say that the cell-phone camera might be invaluable in an envenomation situation.
I’m a bit of a snake enthusiast, hence my Freep-name. My particular interest is rattlers, but I’ll say from what I know about snakes, I’d sure hate to be this guy! The pygmy-rattlers don’t have particularly potent venom, but from the look of this guys leg it looks like a serious envenomation. If he was bit by a coral too, this guy is really in for a ride!
Even if this guy did something dumb, a small prayer might be in order for him! I hope he has good insurance rattlesnake antivenom is about $1000 dollars a vial and it can take many vials. Treatment for a rattlesnake bite can easily cost many tens of thousands of dollars and that is if there are not bad complications. Not to mention amputations and death!
At the least he’ll lose that foot.
If the coral snake got to pump much in he probably won’t care anyway...
His son became a cardiologist and was the chief resident in the program at the USF teaching hospital. Sadly he was killed in a motorcycle accident on his day off. What a loss for the community.
No doubt the guy was bitten by something that didn't wish him well!
When I spoke of capturing or killing the snake I was referring to my youth in Okeechobee, in the early 50s’. No cell phones then! Your best bet was to kill the snake.
Reminds me of the story about the guy who was going hunting with several of his friends and when he stepped behind a tree to relieve himself he was bitten on the penis by a rattlesnake. He staggered back to the group and told them what had happened. No one knew what to do but they knew they had to get help so they sent of the group down the road a few miles to a pay phone to call the local ER. He told the doc his friend had just been bitten by a rattlesnake. The doc told him time was of the essence. That enroute to the hospital they should put a tourniquet between the bite and the heart, make a small cut over each puncture wound and suck the poison out. The caller asked what would happen if they didn't do exactly as the doc had described. The doc responded his friend would likely die. The guy rushes back to the campsite, where by now the guy is really seriously bad off. The snakebite victims asks what the doctor said, the friend replied, “The doc says you're going to die.”
(Old joke punchline) “Doctor says, you gonna die!”
re: old joke
Indeed it is, but there might be someone around who hasn’t heard it yet. I have to have somewhere to tell all my old jokes, my family has heard ‘em all, over and over.
Not easy to tell that joke w/o getting a bit potty mouthed.
I used the medical term, which really takes away from the joke, but even trying to write it is a challenge. Some jokes are just made to be told!
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