Snake bite treatment?

S

sizzler

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Nov 14, 2005
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So what is the proper wilderness treatment for a poisonous snakebite?

All you ever hear is walk slow, keep it below the heart, stay calm, get to a hospital. Get to a hospital, no crap.. But what do you do if getting to a hospital is not an option?
 
Chop off the affected limb, and cauterize the stump with your fire heated red hot knife blade.
 
Kidding man....

Dont buy into the whole snake bite kit thing. Cutting open the site is a bad idea, sucking out the venom with your mouth is a bad idea. Constricting bands are a bad idea.

One product worth a look is the Sawyer extractor. It works very well. Most snakebites dont have venom injected, or are non venomnous snakes. For those, just treat as you would any soft tissue injury.

For wounds with venom injected, you do need to stay calm. Staying calm will keep your heart rate from rising and quickining the circulation of venom. Keeping the affected area below the heart is also important as it does the same thing. The object is to buy you time to seek medical treatment. Antivenom. Do not apply cold packs(bad idea, makes venom extraction harder) or take any meds(some meds thin the blood, not good). You need to be able to monitor your mental status and symptoms, and these things could make that difficult.

The ONLY first aid I reccomend is the Sawyer Extractor to remove venom from a bite.
 
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In addition to what you've already stated, a bandana or something of that sort tied firmly (but not enough to cut off circulation) above the bite will help to slow the spread of venom. If you don't get to the hospital, the outlook isn't going to be so great for you.
 
Thats not gonna work for neurotoxic snakes, just hemotoxic.

Your stoping the venom from circulating, not the blood, so not too tight, but firm. Always monitoring the limb. Only use the bandanna idea for limbs. Dont apply around neck. (dont laugh, youd be suprised)....

Monitor you or the pts ABCs(airway, breathing, circulation) Tx problems as they present themselves.....

Also remove items likely to swell stuck on you(watches,rings, etc)
 
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I've seen quite a bit of debate about whether the Sawyer is effective to any measurable degree. However, a lot of people feel that the mere act of doing something affirmative to treat the wound calms many victims down and probably confers a significant benefit. I have had a Sawyer for a long time and would probably carry it in snake country---even if it did little to reduce venom.

DancesWithKnives
 
"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of a snake bite. And furthermore, always carry a small snake." -W.C. Fields

Seriously, there's not a lot you can do. As DWK said the Sawyer may or may not help.

A lot of times if you're bitten by a poisonous snake it will be a "dry" bite with little to no venom injected. This is much more likely to happen with an adult snake....they realize you aren't a meal for them and they don't want to waste their venom. By the same token, young snakes haven't learned this yet and they often give you everything they have.
 
sizzler said:
So what is the proper wilderness treatment for a poisonous snakebite?
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Depends on the nature of the venom.

Here in Australia, just about all our snakes are elapids with neurotoxic venom.

The current medical advice over here is to strap the limb with a compression bandage about as tight as you would for a sprained ankle. This will slow the transport of the venom and buy you some time to get to a hospital where the correct antivenom will be administered once the snake has been identified (usually by testing the traces of venom on the bandage).

Start at the top of the limb and continue down to the bite. Splint the limb to immobilise it. Try & keep the patient calm.

If the victim has received a decent wet bite (ie puncture, not graze) from one of our more venomous snakes like the Taipan, Eastern Brown, or Tiger snakes and your not in a position to get the victim to the hospital, then put the victim in a position where they can kiss their ass good bye :thumbdn:



Kind regards
Mick
 
DWK2 said:
I've seen quite a bit of debate about whether the Sawyer is effective to any measurable degree. However, a lot of people feel that the mere act of doing something affirmative to treat the wound calms many victims down and probably confers a significant benefit. I have had a Sawyer for a long time and would probably carry it in snake country---even if it did little to reduce venom.

DancesWithKnives
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Yeah, you arent gonna get all the venom....I think its like a 5-6% reduction. However, its better then nothing....:thumbup:
 
BlackHills said:
"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of a snake bite. And furthermore, always carry a small snake." -W.C. Fields

Seriously, there's not a lot you can do. As DWK said the Sawyer may or may not help.

A lot of times if you're bitten by a poisonous snake it will be a "dry" bite with little to no venom injected. This is much more likely to happen with an adult snake....they realize you aren't a meal for them and they don't want to waste their venom. By the same token, young snakes haven't learned this yet and they often give you everything they have.
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Never heard that before. Makes perfect sense.
 
Try to catch the snake - dead (only if its possible and you dont risk further bites!). This way the medics can easy choose the antiserum.

BlackHills, I've heard of this, too. But i would not bet my life on that. Especially if I dont know the snake and whether its a young one or not.

Regards
Michael
 
The Sawyer really doesn't do much of anything helpful, and may increase local tissue damage. It is no longer recommended by most Wilderness Med folks. There have been a number studies that show that it is virtually impossible to remove any significant venom with such devices.

The most recent edition of Wilderness Medicine (Auerbach), no longer recommends them.
 
I have a friend who is an emergency medicine doctor and a year or two ago he went to a "Wilderness Medicine" seminar.

I specifically asked him to pay attention to snakebite and he said at least at that time they just reccomended getting to the doctor or hospital as soon as you can.

One thing I read on the net actually promoted staying where you were for 30 min to let the venom localize before you hiked out.

I have a buddy Dave who has been bitten twice by copperheads and is sort of a macho dude and just toughed it out. One time he was sleeping under a tarp and the snake crawled in and bit him right on his big toe! He said the main problem was that it really hurts and he basically stayed drunk for a couple days to deal with the pain.:eek:
So I guess depending on the snake you could maybe tough it out, but if it was a big rattlesnake or something I think I'd avoid that plan.:o
 
Shuya said:
BlackHills, I've heard of this, too. But i would not bet my life on that. Especially if I dont know the snake and whether its a young one or not.
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I wasn't trying to imply that you can ignore the bite if it's a big snake. It's certainly possible that the adult will give you everything they have too. As for telling if it's young the size is a pretty good indication.

A couple of facts from an interesting read on poisonous snakes:
Over 8,000 people are bitten by poisonous snakes in the United States each year. On average, fewer than 10 snakebite deaths are reported. In fact more people die from wasp and bee stings than from snakebites. Nonetheless venomous snakes must be considered dangerous and even non-fatal bites can cause severe pain and long lasting tissue damage.

Pit vipers generally inject large amounts of venom into hunting bites, but oftentimes little or no venom into defensive bites. In fact, up to 25% of pit viper bites in humans are non-venomous "dry bites". A provoked and angered snake, however, might not only "load up" to be quite venomous, but may also strike several times!
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I used a Sawyer on a guy that was bitten by a terciopelo....fer de lance.
I could see some venom come out. Quite a bit.
Doc said I did good. Still laid him up for 4 days at the clinic.

You want to see something " interesting" ? Price some anti venom there.
Here I get 4 vials for $50 over the counter.
My bulldog got hit by an eyelash viper one night. 2 vials and he was good to go.
He was in bad shape so I nailed him with Histaminex first to take down the swelling.

There's a lot of snakebites down here. 99% is the farm workers.99% is bites to the hand and lower arm. Very few deaths.About 1000 bites a year and just a handful of deaths from being too far out in the boonies.

Here's something interesting doc told me.
His mother was bitten by a coral snake when pregnant with his sister.
The baby died and his mom barely got sick ? Said the venom goes straight to the baby. Evil bastudz.
 
V The best bet is to go see a doctor. Make sure you know your snakes. I had to tell a doctor not to give me antivenin one time due to their incompetence about the situation. You can only take anitvenin once without running the risk of a worse reaction to the cure than the bite. With a copperhead's relatively weak LD50, I wasn't ready to take my one chance on that little guy. I just toughed it out too. Antivenin costs $2,000 a bottle as well which doesn’t help. I work with snakes OFTEN, and if I get bit by something with much more of a punch, be it a cottonmouth or Eastern Diamondback, I would rather use the antivenin on that. That whole endeavor of finding the proper doctors who really knew what was going on with snake en venomation taught me a lot of things:

NO alcohol. It does not help when the blood is thinned, could be worse.
NO Ice. It keeps the venom in one area, which could lead to more damage regardless if the venom is nuero/hemo.
NO Compression- See above.
NO electrical shocks- Causes burns, not cures

IMHO:
The sawyer extractor is only there for peace of mind. It does not work. Period. A. I read the scientific papers. B. I tested it on 12 bee stings that I did to myself just to see if it would suck any venom out. It did not help any, regardless of how fast I did it after the sting. I even did it WHILE the bee was stinging. They are good for popping zits though.
 
Toucan Oasis said:
I used a Sawyer on a guy that was bitten by a terciopelo....fer de lance.
I could see some venom come out. Quite a bit.
Doc said I did good. Still laid him up for 4 days at the clinic.
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I can't believe that. And before we get off on the right foot or in any wars, I'm not calling you a liar at all. I just have never seen or heard of the damn thing working before, and your post has been the first positive experience I've heard of with the device. Interesting.
 
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and just for gag factor:

DSCN0758.jpg

DSCN0768.jpg
 
Nice bite. :eek:
Don't get bit. If you do, get yer azz to a doctor. If you can't, think positve. :)
 
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