Posted on 06/07/2008 4:30:46 PM PDT by PROCON
MIAMI, June 7 (UPI) -- Snake bite victims in the United States tend to be young men who have had too much to drink, an expert says.
Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein of the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami told The Washington Post most bites by venomous snakes occur because of human stupidity. Most people are bitten when trying to pick up or kill snakes.
"The majority of patients are male. The majority are intoxicated," Bernstein said. "And two-thirds of bites we see in this country are upper extremity, so someone picked the snake up. The majority of bites in other countries are lower extremity."
Snake bites in the United States are rarely fatal with only eight to 10 in a year. Bernstein said that most fatal bites occur when the victim has an allergic reaction to the venom and goes into anaphylactic shock or when the snake manages to inject venom directly into a vein or artery.
While more people die from bee stings every year, there is some risk of venomous snake bite in most of the country. Only three states have no venomous snakes -- Maine, Alaska and Hawaii.
Is ths a suprise?
I woulda thought snakes.
guilty (however I was not drinking)
Yep, if spiders were snakes, I'd be dead a long time ago!
Really? So any venomous snakes in upper New Hampshire stop at the Maine border in due respect? I call for the BS Meter on this UPI article, that only drunken kids get bitten by snakes.
No where does the article say “only”. The article says the majority. Drunken kids do stupid things. It probably can be explained away as Darwinism at work.
My family was taking a picture of a rattlesnake on a road in north Florida, and some dumb-a~s jumped out of his truck to catch it. It was a 3-4 foot snake, and he started jabbing at it with a 2 foot tire iron.
Now if he was really skilled and quick, I might have been impressed, but he was slooow. He’d jab, the snake would strike back and miss, then he’d pull his hand back. Not a good start.
So after about a minute he jabbed, the snake struck, stuck to the top of his hand for a second, and then let go. I yelled, “Dude, you’ve been bit!” He said nothing, and just kept going. The snake got him again, same hand. After a few more seconds he stopped, looked at his hand, paused, and then got back in his truck and left without saying a word. It was the stupidest thing I ever saw.
So we followed him into gas station where someone called an ambulance. My wife is a nurse and she stayed with him till the ambulance came. Oh, and BTW, there was a half a case of beer in the truck.
After the ambulance took him away, we spoke to the people there. They knew him and said it was the second time did this. I guess he must have thought the first bite was a fluke!
We called the hospital the next day. He lived.
This was reported in the current “Reptiles” magazine. The actually studies date to the 80’s, according the article there, but there’s no indication that anything has changed. Poisonous snake-bite victims are young, male, and drunk. Surprised by this, anyone?
I guess he must have thought the first bite was a fluke!
We called the hospital the next day. He lived.<<<
Ha!
Lived to fight another day!!
How dumb!
June K.
I reached down to pick up a conibear trap that had been laying in the water all winter(not set) a water moccasin bit me...hurt like hell. I frankly don’t believe that I was stupid, just that I didn’t see the damn snake there. It was beheaded shortly thereafter.
Ping!
I have found rattlers under a cement truck during our home construction, by the front tire of my wife's car, behind my garbage cans, by my deck step, in the inside corner of the garage, in piles of rocks, piles of wood, under stumps, and while walking in the grass (yes, there is such a thing as a snake in the grass. No bites yet.
However, a women two parcels down was bitten on the hand while edging her lawn, the guy who oversaw my phone installation was bitten on the leg walking through a field, and a women at my wife's work was bitten in the ankle while standing by her truck parked in her yard.
So in my experience there is no truth to this article at all.
Same with "victims" of unplanned pregnancies.
I’m surprised that there’s a suprise.
I live near Oracle Junction NW of Tucson, Arizona and own a Titan II missile base near there. I’ve killed and removed at least 20 rattlesnakes from the access portal (stairwell) in the last 5 years. I have pictures of a nest similar to one on my missile base but don’t know how to post them. There are a LARGE number of rattlesnakes (20-30) in a very tight group. Snakes don’t scare me but this pile of venomous potential does.
I have a friend that tells me a story about when he kept bees near here. He was harvesting honey when he felt a sting on his shin. After stopping at the local bar for a couple of beers on the way home, he said that he started to feel “funny”. He returned home and changed his clothes for his afternoon run. When he removed his trousers he noticed something stuck in his leg. His wife removed said object and found it to be a rattlesnake fang. He received treatment and made a full recovery. He doesn’t keep bees now because there are liability issues in Arizona because of Africanized hives.
I recently read that Gila monsters aren’t truly poisonous but have such bad oral hygiene (like ALF, Obama supporters & Earth First! pukes) that their saliva is toxic.
BTW where are you now? Send me a private reply for a potential tour of my missile base if you’re interested. I need help replacing a 40’ extension ladder required to access the site that was stolen recently.
Most of the snake bites in this area are on children playing in the brush and rocks or on farmers hands who are changing irrigation water.
The rule of thumb is...
Bit on the hand probably drunk.Bit on the ankle probably sober.
My idiotic brother-in-law, who did WAY too may drugs in his youth, tried to capture a rattlesnake with a pair of PLIARS! The result was a couple of very pain-filled days in the hospital.
Hiya Taz, you get many snake bite calls?!
Me, I've just been stung by bees, wasps, a scorpion, and a scorpion fish. The scorpion fish was one I had speared at Divers’ Cove in Laguna Beach-the location often shown in the TV show. It's now a marine life sanctuary, so no more spear fishing. The fish was delicious.
That's cool!
It started out that way but now it’s a pain in the @$$ repairing it after break ins. The base is really tough but the steel lid I put on it isn’t and that’s how they break in.
Oh, and a Portuguese Man-of-War.
Must be a gang of snake carrying serial killers at work.
Hey, I need somebody to hold muh beer!
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