Pressure band...ok.

Heart rate? No way to slow that down. I didn't get hit but just seeing it
striking at me as I stradled it between my legs, I was barely able to keep
working my heart was racing so fast. It still jumps up just thinking about
it. I can't even begin to imagine keeping it down AFTER getting hit.

And I've gotten pretty used to them. Stepped on them, over them, picked up
rocks with them underneath, stood right next to a 3 footer coiled less than
a foot from my boot looking around for four or five minutes before I even
noticed he was there. Been hissed at a few times but that was the first time
in all these years one actually struck at me so I'm really not afraid of
being around them...won't even wear snake chaps in the field anymore.

And I still can't imagine keeping my heart rate down :)

John
in Houston, where Rattlesnake Point isn't just a name, its a description!


"Cyli" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:00:47 GMT, "Tex John"
wrote:

I always thought you wanted a tournaquet. Usually if I'm close enough to
a
rattler to get bit, I'm no where near the truck and have a long walk
back.
Really hard to keep your heart rate down and rest so the poison goes
slowly
when you are tromping knee deep in water and muck to get to the truck.
Seems
not using one would get the poison to your heart way too fast.

(snipped)

You're more likely to lose a limb by having a tourniquet on than you
are to suffer death or limb loss by not having one on. A pressure
band, okay. It should be snug, but allow two fingers, at least, to be
put between it and the skin of the limb it's around. Loosening it if
the limb starts to swell. But most people go more for the total
tourniquet effect than the pressure band, so it, too, is not much
recommended. By the by, remove all rings and bracelets and watches or
anything else that happen to be on the affected limb. If you swell up,
they can act as a tourniquet and not have the virtue of you being able
to loosen them.

Deaths from snake bite are very rare. Remembering that may help keep
your heart rate down. FIrst of all, it may be that the snake didn't
have full venom. If it had struck anything else recently, it won't.
Second, it may not pump all the venom it's got into you. Both of
these are mitigating factors. The size of the snake, btw, has little
to do with the amount of venom it's able to put out. Sounds strange,
but I've been assured it's true by authorities I trust. Even if it
pumped full venom into you, think of the size of the creatures it's
generally designed to kill. Small compared to adult humans. This is
not to say that immediately getting back to an emergency room is not a
good idea. It is. It's just not a matter of immediate and certain
death. Or even of later death.

Do not ignore ordinary snake bites just because you recognize that
it's not a poisonous snake. Their fangs are bacteria jungles and they
punch in deeply. You'll want to use your Sawyer Snake Bite kit
(others are not recommended) to suction any puncture wound (never cut
into a puncture wound to do anything with it) and clean it out just as
you would a venomous bite and keep a watch on it for a week after for
signs of swelling or the red line up the limb.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)